Baton Rouge Man Pleads Guilty to Possession of Child Pornography

United States Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that James S. Burland, age 69, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles to possession of child pornography. Burland was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Office pending sentencing. His conviction is punishable by a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to a lifetime period of supervised release which includes sex offender registration requirements.

According to admissions made during his plea, on November 11, 2022, Burland uploaded a file containing an image of child pornography to his internet-based cloud storage account. A subsequent investigation identified that between that date and April 9, 2024, Burland possessed at least 150 additional files containing images of child pornography in his internet-based cloud storage account and on some of his personal computers and storage devices. Some of the images of child pornography depicted prepubescent minors and minors under the age of 12.

This matter was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - Homeland Security Investigations, Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, Office of the Attorney General, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Paul L. Pugliese.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc.