Grand Prairie, Texas, Man Sentenced To 108 Months In Federal Prison For Pandering Child Pornography

DALLAS — A man who came to the attention of law enforcement in Toronto, Canada, during an undercover investigation into the distribution of child pornography, was sentenced today in federal court in Dallas, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.

Christopher Briseno, 45, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis to 108 months in federal prison and a 10-year term of supervised release, following his guilty plea in May 2014 to an Information charging one count of pandering of child pornography.

According to documents filed in the case, in January 2014, an individual, later identified as Briseno, contacted an undercover officer with the Toronto Police Service who was acting in a covert capacity online to identify individuals engaged in distributing child pornography. Briseno indicated he was sexually abusing his two minor daughters, age 11 and 16, and he sent the undercover officer two images of his “daughters,” depicting the sexual abuse.

When it was learned that Briseno lived in Grand Prairie, Texas, the investigative lead was sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Dallas. On February 4, 2014, Special Agents with HSI executed a search warrant at his residence.

Briseno admitted that he does not have children of his own and that he had created an online persona and used children he knew to be minors as the victims of sexual abuse. The children whom he said were his daughters were actually the children of acquaintances. He also admitted stealing pictures posted on social media websites of three different minor children and using them during chats about incest. He admitted searching the Internet for sexually explicit images of young females and sending those photos, in conjunction with the clothed photos of the minor females he claimed were his daughters, as proof of his involvement in the sexual abuse of minors.

Briseno admitted chatting with an individual in Canada, (the undercover officer) who was the mother of two minor children, and instructing her to sexually abuse her two-year-old daughter. He further admitted sending photos to this individual of the two minor girls, as well as a sexually explicit photo of a young girl, telling this person that it was his 11-year-old daughter.

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.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks was in charge of the prosecution.