Wasilla Man Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison for Downloading Child Pornography

Anchorage, Alaska – U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder announced that Tyler Arlan Weis, 41, of Wasilla, was sentenced yesterday by Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess to serve 12 years in prison, followed by a life term of supervised release, for receipt of child pornography.

In October 2016, Alaska State Troopers (AST) investigating an online file-sharing network downloaded multiple files of child pornography from Weis’s computer.  Among these files of child pornography were images of adults vaginally and anally penetrating prepubescent females.  During a search of Weis’s home, Troopers located images of child pornography on his computer.  Also present were multiple hidden camera videos of minors that Weis had secretly recorded while those minors used the bathroom in his home.

At sentencing, Judge Burgess described the defendant’s crime as “extremely serious,” and noted the “profound” effect that the images and videos received, created and possessed by the defendant had on their victims.  The images downloaded by the defendant through the file-sharing network “depicted serious, disturbing, heinous violations that [the] children in the videos suffered,” said Judge Burgess.  However, as bad as those downloaded files were, the hidden camera videos produced by the defendant were “even more troubling,” according to Judge Burgess, because “the activity occurred in his own house.”

The Alaska State Troopers conducted the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of this case.  This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Reardon.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices nationwide 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.