Louisville Man Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Transporting and Possessing Child Pornography
LOUISVILLE, KY – U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn, II sentenced a Louisville man today to 120 months in prison followed by a life term of supervised release for violating federal child exploitation laws announced David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
On October 4, 2010 a federal grand jury in Louisville returned a two-count Indictment against Ashley Coffey, age 64, charging him with transporting and possessing child pornography. Coffey pled guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court on June 9, 2011.
The Indictment alleged that on or about July 27, 2010, Coffey knowingly transported child pornography, as that term is defined under federal law, using the Internet. The Indictment also charged him with knowingly possessing child pornography on or about August 25, 2010. According to an Affidavit filed by a Detective with the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit in support of a Criminal Complaint against Coffey, law enforcement officials became aware of Coffey’s criminal activity while conducting an online undercover investigation concerning the trading of child pornography images. The Detective downloaded numerous images of child pornography directly from Coffey’s computer. Law enforcement officials executed a federal Search Warrant on Coffey’s home on August 25, 2010. They seized several computers from the home. A preview conducted on the scene of the search revealed the presence of numerous images of child pornography on the computers. Additionally, Coffey admitted that he used the Internet to acquire images of child pornography.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jo E. Lawless. The Louisville Metro Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit conducted the investigation as part of Kentucky’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.
