A former U.S. Army intelligence officer was sentenced to 236 months in federal prison to two counts involving child pornography, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton announced Thursday.
Gary Alan Hernandez Jr., a former First Lieutenant with the 204th Military Intelligence at Fort Bliss, will go to prison for nearly 20 years for producing and possessing child pornography. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Philip Martinez ordered that Hernandez pay a $1,000 fine and be placed under supervised release for a period of ten years after completing his prison term.
On December 6, 2006, Hernandez pleaded guilty to one count of production and one count of possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of children. In his guilty plea, Hernandez admitted that on April 16, 2005, he enticed a minor female to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of photographing such activity and distributing the photographs via the Internet.
The undercover investigation began in February 2005 when the defendant was looking online for someone to coordinate distribution and sales of sexually explicit photographs of minors that he produced. On August 3, 2005, agents with the El Paso division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at the defendant’s residence. Agents seized several computers, computer media, three cellular phones and several digital and film cameras. A forensic review discovered more than 600 photographic images and one video of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct located on the defendant’s computers.
“Those who sexually exploit and prey on our children are pure evil,” said U.S. Attorney Sutton. “The scars that they leave on the spirits of our kids seldom go away,” he added.
The case was investigated by the El Paso Division of the FBI and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William F. Lewis and Laura Franco Gregory on behalf of the government.
The case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse, the FBI said in a press release. The initiative, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, combines the resources of federal, state, and local authorities to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.
