Belleville Man Sentenced To Over 10 Years In Prison For Receipt And Possession Of Child Pornography

Joseph Millard, 50, of Belleville, Illinois, was sentenced in the United States District Court to 121 months in prison for Receipt and Possession of Child Pornography, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Millard was also ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to the victims of his offenses and a fine in the amount of $10,000. Following his prison sentence, Millard will be on federal supervised release for 10 years and will also be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.

Court documents establish that in January 2012, during an undercover Internet investigation, agents from the Illinois Attorney General High Tech Crimes Bureau determined that Millard was offering for download child pornography files using a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Agents obtained and executed a search warrant for Millard’s residence, during which Millard was interviewed and admitted that he had been downloading child pornography from the Internet for approximately 10 years. During a forensic examination of Millard’s computers, agents recovered numerous video and image files containing child pornography that Millard had downloaded from the Internet.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”

The investigation was conducted by the Illinois Attorney General High Tech Crimes Bureau. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ali Summers.