United States Attorney James T. Jacks
Northern District of Texas

FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txn/

BOSTON-AREA MAN ARRESTED ON
FEDERAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CHARGE

FORT WORTH, Texas — Christopher T. Roy, 37, was arrested Wednesday evening without incident at his home in Middleboro, Massachusetts, (approximately 45 miles south of Boston) on a federal child pornography charge, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas and John Chakwin Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Dallas. Roy remains in custody pending a detention hearing next week in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. An exact date and time have not yet been set for that hearing.

“Anyone who targets children for sexual exploitation should also consider themselves a target by ICE and by our law enforcement partners,” said John Chakwin, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the ICE office in Dallas. Chakwin oversees 120 counties in north Texas and the State of Oklahoma.

A federal criminal complaint was filed on Wednesday in the Fort Worth, Texas division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, charging Roy with possession of child pornography. According to the affidavit filed with the complaint, on Saturday morning, June 12, 2010, Roy entered the U.S. at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, arriving from the Jesus Teŕan Peredo International Airport in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Roy was the subject of a one-day lookout by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) based on an intelligence report that named Roy, along with numerous other subjects in the Boston area, who had purchased memberships to known child pornography sites.

Based on this lookout, a CBP officer conducted a secondary inspection of Roy’s baggage and questioned Roy about the purpose of his travel to Mexico. Roy stated that he’d been in Mexico on business for approximately one week. The CBP officer examined Roy’s laptop computer and found what he believed to be child pornography videos.

An ICE agent arrived and interviewed Roy regarding the purported contraband movie files. Roy stated that the computer was his work computer and that two weeks ago, he had downloaded approximately 15 child pornography videos onto the computer and had begun downloading about 20 additional child pornography videos.

 On June 14, 2010, a preliminary forensic exam on the computer was conducted by ICE. Numerous movies files of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults were found.

A federal complaint is a written statement of the essential facts of the offenses charged, and must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. A defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The penalty, however, for possession of child pornography is up to 10 years in prison, a lifetime of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. The U.S. Attorney’s office has 30 days to present the matter to a grand jury for indictment.

This matter was 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 (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 matter is being investigated by ICE and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex C. Lewis, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Fort Worth.

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