Harnett County Man Sentenced To 30 Years For The Manufacturing Of Child Pornography

RALEIGH – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced that today in federal court, Chief United States District Judge James C. Dever, sentenced CLARENCE WILLARD ALBRITTON, 37, of Harnett County, to 360 months imprisonment followed by a lifetime of supervised release.    

ALBRITTON was named in a 10-count Indictment filed on March 2, 2016.  On June 27, 2016, he pled guilty to one count of the Manufacture of Child Pornography.

On July 25, 2015, the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) in Lillington, initiated an investigation related to the production of child pornography (CP).  On that date, ALBRITTON’s wife contacted them about a computer flash drive she located in ALBRITTON’s vehicle.  The flash drive contained child pornography images.  Body parts, tattoos, and clothing confirmed the identification of the adult male as ALBRITTON.  Additionally, his wife surrendered a laptop computer and a second computer flash drive to authorities.  The defendant was arrested in New Jersey on July 31, 2015.  Incident to his arrest, authorities seized a cellular phone and laptop computer.  A preliminary forensic examination of the ALBRITTON’s computer and media storage devices uncovered at least 85 sexually explicit images of a 3-year-old child victim.  A complete forensic examination of ALBRITTON’s computers and media storage devices uncovered 642 images of CP with multiple images of infants.

The criminal investigation of this case was conducted by the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  Assistant United States Attorney Ethan A. Ontjes is handling the prosecution on behalf of the Eastern District of North Carolina.

This case was part of the Project Safe Childhood initiative, a national program aimed at ensuring that criminals exploiting children are effectively prosecuted by making full use of all available law enforcement resources at every level.  For more information about this important national project, Project Safe Childhood, go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov.