Montgomery County Man Pleads Guilty to Possession of Child Pornography

Greenbelt, Maryland – Frank A. Dunn, Jr., age 60, of Burtonsville and Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to possession of child pornography.

The indictment was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur; Special Agent in Charge Stephen Niemczak, Office of Investigations, Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services; and Chief J. Thomas Manger of the Montgomery County Police Department.

According to the statement of facts that is part of Dunn’s plea agreement, on May 31, 2017, law enforcement executed search warrants at Dunn’s residences in Burtonsville and Silver Spring and recovered more than 14,000 images and 285 videos of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.  The images and videos included approximately 1,123 files involving minors identified as victims of child pornography by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, files depicting the abuse of infants and toddlers, and files depicting sadomasochism or violence against children.

Dunn also admitted that he distributed child pornography over the Internet from his Burtonsville residence using peer-to-peer file sharing software.  Between April 2016 and August 2016, an undercover law enforcement officer downloaded approximately 500 images and 15 videos that Dunn made available for sharing over the Internet.

As part of his plea agreement, Dunn must register as a sex offender in the places where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

Dunn and the government have agreed that if the Court accepts the plea agreement, Dunn will be sentenced to between four and nine years in prison.  U.S. District Judge George J. Hazel has scheduled sentencing for November 14, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. 

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the "Resources" tab on the left of the page.       

United States Attorney Robert K. Hur commended the HHS-OIG and the Montgomery County Police Department for their work in the investigation.  Mr. Hur thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gregory Bernstein and Joseph Baldwin, who are prosecuting the federal case.