Press Release
Idaho Man Sentenced To 20 Years For Distributing Child Pornography
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida
Orlando, FL – U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron today sentenced Charles Keith Rolfe (60, Heyburn, Idaho) to 20 years in federal prison for distributing child pornography. The Court also ordered Rolfe to serve a lifetime term of supervised release and to register as a sex offender after he completes his prison sentence. A restitution hearing for his victims is scheduled for January 13, 2015. Rolfe pleaded guilty on June 27, 2014.
According to court documents, in the summer of 2013, Rolfe met an Orlando man, William Edward Osman, on an online social networking site. The two men soon began trading images of child pornography via a Mobile Messaging Application (“MMA”). Osman also told Rolfe that he had molested his one-year-old daughter.
On October 15, 2013, special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrested Osman on charges related to the sexual exploitation of children. Agents seized his cell phone and identified Rolfe as one of the men with whom Osman had been electronically trading child pornography. After assuming Osman’s online identity, agents communicated with Rolfe in an undercover capacity. On February 28, 2014, Rolfe sent the undercover agents at least three videos containing images of child pornography via the MMA on his cell phone. He also told the agents that he had attempted to molest his own five-year-old daughter when his wife was away, and that he was grooming his daughter for potential future sexual abuse.
Rolfe was arrested on April 3, 2014. A subsequent search of his home and cell phones revealed that Rolfe possessed almost 900 images of child pornography, many of which depicted children under the age of 12.
On September 3, 2014, Osman was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography.
"Crimes against our children will not be tolerated," said Susan L. McCormick, special agent in charge of HSI Tampa. "As a result of our collaboration with HSI Boise, and the investigative work of our agents here at home, this child predator can no longer victimize innocent children.”
This case was investigated by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. It was 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.
Updated January 26, 2015
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