Dallas Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Federal Prison on Child Pornography Conviction

DALLAS — A 38-year-old Dallas resident, Rex Sistos, was sentenced this morning by U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater to 240 months in federal prison following his guilty plea to one count of transportation of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

According to documents filed in the case, the Dallas Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) unit received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in September 2013 that Facebook had advised that a particular Facebook user, later identified as Sistos, had uploaded content that Facebook considered child pornography.  The investigation led to the execution of a search warrant at Sistos’s home in Dallas on October 23, 2013.

During the execution of that warrant, Sistos was home and agreed to speak with an ICAC detective.  Sistos admitted he used his cell phone to send an image of child pornography to an adult female located in the Philippines.  A forensic analysis of the cell phone confirmed that Sistos had Facebook accounts associated with the image Sistos transported on two different occasions.  Other images and videos of child pornography were also located on his phone.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.  For more information about Internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”

The Dallas Police Department’s ICAC and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks prosecuted.

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