Lexington Man Sentenced for Distribution of Child Pornography

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A Lexington man, James Allen Brown, 26, was sentenced on Wednesday, to 165 months in prison, by Chief U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves, for the distribution of child pornography. 

According to his plea agreement, from June 2022 to March 2023, Brown used multiple Instagram accounts to send and receive child sexual abuse material.  Law enforcement also located evidence of sexually explicit depictions of minors stored on Brown’s cell phone and accessed on a cloud storage system.  During an interview, Brown admitted to law enforcement that he used Instagram and Telegram to trade child pornography with others.  

Under federal law, Brown must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence.  Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years. 

Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Michael Stansbury, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Office; and Russell Coleman, Kentucky Attorney General, jointly announced the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Melton is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 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.

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