Youngsville man sentenced to 8 years in prison for receiving sexually explicit image from minor

LAFAYETTE, La. – Acting U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced today that a man from Youngsville was sentenced to 96 months in prison for receiving sexually explicit material from a minor and then asking her travel to Louisiana.

Gary Joseph Vincent, 26, of Youngsville, La., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge S. Maurice Hicks Jr. on one count of receiving child pornography. He was also sentenced to 20 years of supervised release and is required to register as sex offender. According to the April 13, 2017 guilty plea, Vincent admitted that he received a sexually explicit image via the internet of a minor female who lived in another state on December 17, 2015. Vincent also asked the minor to travel to Louisiana, but law enforcement agents intercepted the minor before she could make the trip.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood combines 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.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) also encourage the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at (866) 347-2423. Investigators are available at all hours to answer hotline calls. Tips or other information can also be submitted to ICE online by visiting their website at www.ice.gov/exec/forms/hsi-tips/tips.asp or through the Operation Predator smartphone application www.ice.gov/predator/smartphone-app. Tips may be submitted anonymously.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Louisiana State Police and Chatham Police Department in Illinois conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Luke Walker and Dominic Rossetti prosecuted the case.