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Press Release

Sanford Man Pleads Guilty To Manufacting Child Pornography

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of North Carolina

NEW BERN – United States Attorney Thomas G. Walker announced that in federal court today BAILEY JOE MILLS, 34, of Sanford, North Carolina, pled guilty before United States Magistrate Judge Robert B. Jones, Jr. to one count of manufacturing child pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a)and (d).  MILLS was named in a Criminal Information on June 12, 2014.  

According to the investigation, in or about January 2014, MILLS did videotape himself having sex with a 13 year old girl.    On January 5, 2014, a search warrant was executed at MILL’S home, where several laptops, external harddrives, and cell phones were seized.  Computer forensics located videos taken by MILLS on his cellphone of himself sexually molesting several of juvenile victims, including two toddlers in his care at the time.  In addition to the videos, approximately 10,000 images of child pornography were found on MILLS computers, as well as 100,000 images of child erotica and adult pornography.   

At sentencing, set for November 4, 2014, MILLS faces a mandatory 35 years up to life sentence due to his two prior sex convictions.

The criminal investigation of this case was conducted by the United States Immgigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations - Raleigh, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office. 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.

Updated July 14, 2015