Former Minden Man Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison for Possessing Child Pornography
Las Vegas, Nev. – A former Minden, Nev. man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and lifetime supervised release after authorities found images and videos of child pornography on his personal computers, announced Daniel G. Bogden, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada.
Brian Gary Burke, 46, formerly of Minden, but currently a resident of Las Vegas, was sentenced on Thursday, October 14, 2010, by U.S. District Judge Larry R. Hicks. Burke was indicted on March 24, 2010, and pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on July 7, 2010.
According to the court records, Burke became a suspect in the child pornography investigation after he donated a computer to a Henderson business in November 2009. The recipients of the donated computer located images of child pornography on the computer and notified the Henderson Police Department. On March 2, 2010, law enforcement authorities interviewed Burke at his place of employment in Carson City, and Burke admitted that he had sought images of child pornography over the internet. Burke provided law enforcement authorities consent to search the computers at his residence in Minden, and a forensic examination of his laptop computer, revealed the presence of 29 videos of child pornography which had been downloaded from the internet. A forensic examination of the donated computer also confirmed the presence of five videos of child pornography and known child pornography search terms. The child pornography included images of prepubescent minors.
At sentencing, the defendant presented a psychologist witness who testified that the defendant's crime was a non-victim sexual crime. Unfortunately, this argument could not be more erroneous, as the minor victims whose photographs were circulated over the internet were, and will be, repeatedly re-victimized for the rest of their lives by the offenders who commit these crimes.
The defendant was permitted to self-report to federal prison by December 14, 2010.
The investigation was conducted by the Henderson Police Department, Nevada Attorney General's Office, and Carson City Sheriff's Office, as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys William R. Reed, Carla Higginbotham, and Nancy J. Koppe.
The 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 U.S. Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the U.S. Department of Justice, 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.
