Sept. 22, 2011

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Gary Daniel Beeman, 39, has been sentenced to 235 months in federal prison for distributing child pornography, United States Attorney Jose Angel Moreno announced today.

Senior United States District Judge Janis Graham Jack handed down the sentence on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011. Indicted in April 2011, Beeman pleaded guilty to the felony offense on July 13, 2011, admitting that to having distributed images and videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The charges against Beeman are the result of an investigation initiated on March 28, 2011, after a Corpus Christi Police Department (CCPD) officer received information from a concerned citizen that Beeman may be in possession of child pornography. 

Agents with the Corpus Christi office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) along with detectives from the Corpus Christi Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (CCPD-ICAC) contacted Beeman at his Corpus Christi home. During that meeting, a cell phone possessed by Beeman was found to contain child pornography. Beeman admitted to both acquiring and possessing child pornography. A search of Beeman’s residence resulted in the discovery of several books about how to photograph children as well as books including accounts of child sexual abuse survivors.

A forensic analysis of Beeman’s cell phone and other Internet activity revealed Beeman to be in possession of more than 2000 images of child pornography, the subjects of which had been previously identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as known victims. The analysis also revealed Beeman had sent images to another individual, who himself was a prior sex offender. The distribution of these images is the basis for Beeman’s distribution of child pornography conviction in this district as well as federal charges brought in the Northern District of Texas against the recipient of the images.

Beeman was previously convicted of receiving child pornography in 2002 in federal court in Corpus Christi and had served an 84-month-term of imprisonment prior to the instant offense.  

In sentencing Beeman, Judge Jack stressed the need to protect the public and expressed concern that Beeman would remain a danger to children for the rest of his life. In addition to the prison term, the court has further ordered he be supervised by the court subject to conditions designed to protect children for the rest of his life. Beeman has been a registered sex offender since his 2002 conviction.

In custody since his April 2011 indictment, Beeman will remain in custody pending the designation of a Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated in the near future where he will serve out his sentence. 

This case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lance Duke, 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, 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.