Omaha Man Sentenced for Producing Child Pornography
United States Attorney Jan Sharp announced that Phillip D. Gonzales, 33, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced on May 25, 2022, by United States District Judge Brian C. Buescher to 180 months’ imprisonment. After his release from prison, he will begin a 5-year term of supervised release and will be required to register as a sex offender. Gonzales pled guilty in February 2022 to producing child pornography.
In about September 2020, a 16-year-old female who had run from home met Gonzales and his co-defendant in Omaha. Gonzales and the minor developed a relationship. The minor also engaged in prostitution. Gonzales took a series of photographs and videos of the minor female depicting, among other things, the minor female performing oral sex and posing lasciviously. The images were recovered after the Omaha Police Department conducted a traffic stop of Gonzales and the minor female and learned she was being trafficked.
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 Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Omaha Police Department.