James T. Jacks
Acting United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

TARRANT COUNTY MAN SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON
ON CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CONVICTION

Defendant Had at Least Two Million Images and Videos of Child Pornography

DALLAS — Paul Hicks, 68, currently a resident of Bedford, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor, who upwardly departed from the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and sentenced him to 180 months in prison, announced Acting U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. In March 2009, Hicks pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography and was remanded into federal custody. At today’s sentencing hearing, Judge O’Connor also ordered that Hicks serve a lifetime of supervised release and register as a sex offender.

Today, an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) testified that conservatively, Hicks’ massive collection of DVDs/CDs contained more than two million images and videos of child pornography including a significant number of images and videos of children under the age of six, including infants and toddlers. The agent also testified that is the largest collection of child pornography that she, or anyone else in her office, has ever seen.

In documents filed when Hicks pleaded guilty, he admitted that on January 27, 2007, while he resided on Marsh Lane in Carrollton, Texas, his computer, storage media device, and CDs contained more than 125,000 images of child pornography. However, since that time, forensic examination has shown that, in fact, there were millions of images. Hicks admitted obtaining some of the images by subscribing to child pornography web sites, downloading child pornography from those sites to his computer hard drive, and saving images on CD’s and other storage media. Hicks admitted that some of the images depicted prepubescent minors engaged in sexual acts, and some portrayed sadistic and/or masochistic conduct.

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 investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks prosecuted.

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