Repeat Sex Offender Sentenced to 8 Years For Transporting Child Pornography

MADISON, WIS. – Timothy M. O’Shea, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that James H. Hornung, 73, Newbold, Wisconsin, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge William M. Conley to 100 months in federal prison for transporting obscene material in interstate commerce on two separate occasions. Hornung pleaded guilty to these charges on December 2, 2024.

On September 17, 2023, an individual called law enforcement to report that he had found a duffel bag along a logging trail in the Town of Newbold. An officer seized the duffel bag and brought it to the Sheriff’s office.

The duffel bag contained approximately 27 USB flash drives, SD cards, and several CDs, and other electronics. Officers identified the profile on a laptop found in the bag as Hornung’s.  Agents analyzed the laptop and 6 flash drives that were submitted from the duffel and located almost 3500 media files that appeared to be child pornography.

Officers interviewed Hornung who admitted that he owned the duffel bag and said there was child pornography on the discs and flash drives. Hornung said that he searched and collected child pornography, put it into the duffel bag, and hid it because he was paranoid that he would get caught with it.

In sentencing Hornung, Judge Conley believed that Hornung left the duffel bag so that he could retrieve it after he was released from custody and keep possession of his child pornography collection. Judge Conley also found it aggravating that Hornung was accessing child pornography while on bond on another child pornography case. Judge Conley observed that Hornung was a sexual predator who was either unwilling or unable to address his long-standing attraction to minors.

In addition to this federal conviction, Hornung was convicted of second-degree sexual assault in 1979, sexual assault of child in 1997, and possession of child pornography in 2023.

The charges against Hornung were the result of an investigation conducted by the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office and the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Ginsberg prosecuted this case.

This investigation was a part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. 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.justice.gov/psc.