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Press Release

Man Who Received Depictions of Child Sexual Abuse Sentenced to Federal Prison

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

A man who possessed depictions of child sexual abuse was sentenced today to six years in federal prison.

Mychal Olson, age 32, from Dubuque, Iowa, received the prison term after an April 22, 2022 guilty plea to receipt of child pornography.

At the guilty plea, Olson admitted that between May 2019 and December 2020 he knowingly received depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct on his cell phone.

Olson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Olson was sentenced to 72 months’ imprisonment and fined $100.  He was ordered to make restitution.  He must also serve a ten-year term of supervised release after the prison term and will be required to register on the sex offender registry.  There is no parole in the federal system.

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, 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.usdoj.gov/psc.  For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”

Olson is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Liz Dupuich and investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Waterloo Police Department with assistance from the South Australian Police.          

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl

The case file number is 21-cr-2075.

Follow us on Twitter @USAO_NDIA.

Updated October 17, 2022

Topic
Project Safe Childhood