Polk City Man Sentenced to 5 Years Imprisonment on Federal Child Pornography Charges

DES MOINES, IA – On October 22, 2014, Domenic “John” Pighetti, age 70, of Polk City, Iowa, was sentenced by United States District Court Chief Judge James E. Gritzner to five years in prison for knowingly possessing child pornography, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. Pighetti was ordered to serve five years supervised release following the imprisonment, to pay a $17,500 fine, and to pay $100 to the Crime Victims Fund. Pighetti was also ordered to forfeit the computer equipment and media involved in the offense.

Evidence in this case included the fact Pighetti started collecting child pornography in 2006, after reading in the newspaper about someone else being caught doing so by law enforcement, and the fact that Pighetti sought out and collected child pornography from 2006 until caught by law enforcement authorities in 2013.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nation-wide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children.

Any persons having knowledge of a child being sexually abused are encouraged to call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.

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