FORMER VANCOUVER MAN CAPTURED AFTER FLEEING AHEAD OF CHILD PORN SENTENCING
Defendant Faces Additional Prison Time for Failing to Appear for Sentencing
A former Vancouver, Washington resident was captured late yesterday in Las Vegas, Nevada, after failing to show up last week for sentencing. 47-year-old PAUL ERIC PRESLEY, had been released on bond with Geographic Positioning System (GPS) monitoring pending his sentencing for Receipt of Child Pornography. On Saturday, November 15, 2008, PRESLEY cut off his GPS ankle bracelet, and apparently fled his Portland, Oregon residence.
PRESLEY was arrested at about 8:00 last night at an address in North Las Vegas by the U.S. Marshal sponsored Nevada Fugitive Investigative Strike Team (NV FIST). The arrest was the culmination of work by an ad hoc task force created last week to locate and apprehend PRESLEY. The task force contained officers and agents from the U.S. Marshal’s Service Pacific Northwest Fugitive Apprehension Task Force (PNWFAT), the FBI, the Clark County Criminal Apprehension team (CCAT), the Vancouver Police Department Computer Forensics Unit and the Multnomah County, Oregon Sheriff’s Office.
At his sentencing hearing scheduled for November 17, 2008, prosecutors were asking for a 71 month prison sentence. According to PRESLEY’s plea agreement, on December 6, 2006, Vancouver Police responded to a 9-1-1 call at PRESLEY’s home. PRESLEY’s wife told the officers she called 9-1-1 because PRESLEY had child pornography stored on his desktop and laptop computers. Officers seized the desktop computer but did not find the laptop. The next day PRESLEY’s daughter and her boyfriend delivered the laptop to police saying PRESLEY had given them the computer and told them to dispose of it. A forensic examination of the computers revealed more than 2,900 images and 235 movies of children engaged in explicit sexual conduct.
PRESLEY’s failure to appear for his hearing means he may be charged with the crime of Failure to Appear which is punishable by up to ten years in prison, on top of his sentence in the child pornography case.
The case was investigated by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and the FBI.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Mike Dion and David Reese Jennings.
For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, at (206) 553-4110 or Email her at Emily.Langlie@usdoj.gov.
