Cullman Man Sentenced to 90 Years for Producing Child Pornography Involving Multiple Victims

BIRMINGHAM – A federal judge today sentenced a Cullman man to 90 years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release for producing child pornography involving seven minor victims, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town. 

U.S. District Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins sentenced GREGORY JEROME LEE, 54, on four counts of production of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to the charges in January. Lee’s 90-year sentence will run consecutively to a 25-year sentence he received on a separate state prosecution for molesting two other victims.

According to court documents, beginning in September 1996 and continuing for more than a decade until August 2007, Lee and his co-conspirators belonged to a group of sophisticated offenders who gathered in secret password-protected chat rooms to discuss their sexual interest in minors and the real-life sexual abuse of children being perpetrated by several group members. Lee and others also used these chat rooms to advertise, distribute, receive and possess child pornography. Court documents state that from September 1996 through December 2004, Lee sexually abused at least seven different minors and that he frequently produced images and videos depicting his sexual exploitation of these children, which he shared with his co-conspirators. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Fortune and Trial Attorney Ralph Paradiso of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division prosecuted the case. 

The 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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov.