Reliance Man Sentenced for Accessing Child Pornography

US Attorney Brendan V. Johnson announced that a Reliance, South Dakota, man who pled guilty to the charge of Accessing Child Pornography with Intent to View was sentenced on September 20, 2011, by US District Judge Roberto A. Lange. Douglas Fletcher, age 68, was sentenced to 70 months in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay a $3,000 fine. He will also be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody.

Fletcher was indicted for Possession of Child Pornography by a federal grand jury on December 8, 2010. On November 17, 2009, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Douglas Fletcher's residence in Reliance. Investigators seized his computer and multiple hard drives from his home and forensically examined them. The forensic examinations revealed the presence of images of child pornography on three of the seized hard drives. Fletcher has admitted that he knowingly accessed with intent to view computer files that contained images of child pornography while using his home computer in Reliance. He pled guilty to the charge of accessing child pornography with intent to view on May 24, 2011. Fletcher had previously been convicted of sexual contact with a minor in South Carolina in 2008.

The investigation was conducted by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, the Lyman County Sheriff's Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations . The case was prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey C. Clapper.
Fletcher was immediately turned over to the custody of the US Marshal.

This case is being 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 the 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.