Las cruces man sentenced to 78 months in prison for possession of child pornography
LAS CRUCES – United States Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales announced that today, William Ege, 52, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, was sentenced to 78 months of imprisonment for possession of child pornography in federal court in Las Cruces. Upon completion of this sentence, Ege will be on supervised release for life. Ege also will be required to register as a sex offender.
Ege, who pled guilty to the charge on June 9, 2010, admitted in his plea agreement that he possessed more than 600 images of sexually explicit images of children as young as four years old. Some of the images depicted adult males having sexual intercourse with pre-pubescent females. Ege downloaded the images from the Internet and viewed them on his computer. Ege, who was arrested on November 6, 2009, has been in custody since his arrest.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Stephen H. Wong, and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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 investigation was led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations with assistance from the Las Cruces Police Department. The case also was brought as part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force’s (ICAC Task Force) mission to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico. There are 61 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies associated with the ICAC Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the New< Mexico Attorney General’s Office. Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.
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