Idaho Man Pleads Guilty To Distributing Child Pornography

Orlando, FL – United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announces that Charles Keith Rolfe (60, Heyburn, Idaho) today pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography.  Rolfe faces a mandatory minimum of 5 years, up to 20 years in federal prison. He also faces a mandatory minimum of 5 years, up to a lifetime of supervision, after his release, and will be required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. 

According to the plea agreement, on February 28, 2014, Rolfe communicated via a Mobile Messaging Application (“MMA”) on his cellular phone, with an individual with whom he believed he had previously traded child pornography (Subject #1).  However, agents with Homeland Security Investigations had assumed Subject #1’s online identity and began communicating with Rolfe in an undercover capacity, after Subject #1’s arrest in October 2013. Rolfe sent the undercover agents at least three videos containing images of child pornography via the MMA on his cellular phone. During a later search of Rolfe’s home, agents found almost 900 images of child pornography stored on a cell phone.

This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joseph M. Schuster.

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 Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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.