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Press Release

Former Assistant Middle School Coach Sentenced To Prison For Possessing Child Pornography

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Alabama

BIRMINGHAM – A federal judge today sentenced a former Homewood middle school coach and elementary school special education aide to more than eight years in prison for possessing child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and Alabama Department of Public Safety Director Hugh B. McCall.

U.S. District Judge Inge P. Johnson sentenced JOSHUA DAVID STATUM, 26, of Pelham, to eight years and one month in prison for possessing 1,875 images of child pornography in 2011 and 2012. Statum pleaded guilty to the charge in March. He must serve five years of supervised release after completing his prison term.

Among the videos Statum possessed and distributed on a peer-to-peer file-sharing computer software program was one showing a little girl, less than 12 years old, being sadistically sodomized and raped, and another showing a 5-year-old girl performing sexual acts, according to court documents.

While Statum was working as an assistant wrestling and football coach at Homewood Middle School and as a special education aide, he was viewing and sharing child pornography over the Internet, according to the government's sentencing memorandum. "This defendant did not just look at a few images once in his life, but used file sharing computer technology to distribute images of prepubescent children being sodomized and raped and also to possess thousands of images of children be similarly exploited," the memorandum states.

The Alabama Bureau of Investigation investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel J. Fortune prosecuted the case.


Updated March 19, 2015