Omaha Man Sentenced to 87 Months for Child Pornography

United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Chad M. Pedersen, 36, was sentenced today in federal court in Omaha for receiving child pornography. The Honorable Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. sentenced Pedersen to 87 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal prison system. After his release from prison, Pedersen will serve a five-year term of supervised release and will be required to register as a sex offender. Pedersen was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to each of two minor victims whose images were among the more than 14,000 images of child pornography on his computer and storage devices.

In October 2016 Pedersen accessed an undercover website offering free child pornography. He obtained a password to the VIP section. There was no child pornography available on the undercover website. His IP address was noted by investigators.

In 2017 investigators with the FBI Omaha Child Exploitation Task Force served a search warrant on Pedersen’s Yahoo! accounts recovering 156 videos and more than 1,400 images of child pornography.  A federal search warrant was executed on Pedersen’s Omaha residence in November, 2017. Two computers seized from his residence revealed 114 videos and more than 6,000 images of child pornography. The child pornography included numerous images involving infants and bondage.

This 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 United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.

This case was investigated by the Omaha FBI's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force