Federal Judge Sentences Monroe Man To Six Years In Prison On Child Pornography Charges
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn, Jr. sentenced Darren Mark Webb, 41, of Monroe, N.C. to six years in prison on child pornography charges, announced Jill Westmoreland Rose, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Webb was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release, to register as a sex offender, and to pay $2,500 as restitution to his victims.
John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division joins Acting U.S. Attorney Rose in making today’s announcement.
According to court documents and the sentencing hearing, in or about July 2013, FBI agents conducting an undercover investigation discovered that Webb was downloading child pornography from the Internet. Upon executing a search warrant at Webb’s residence, law enforcement discovered that Webb possessed over 550 images and videos of child pornography, including images and videos of prepubescent children.
Webb pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography in January 2015. He will be ordered to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.
FBI handled the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cortney S. Randall, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.
The 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 U.S. Attorneys’ 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.