Crimes against Children 6-19-12

Greenbelt, MD
Chief U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Jeffrey Sopher, age 40, of Marbury, Maryland, today to 114 months in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, for two counts of transportation of child pornography. Chief Judge Chasanow ordered that, upon his release from prison, Sopher must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is employed, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

Chief Judge Chasanow also sentenced Tracy Saole, age 42, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, to two years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for failure to register as a sex offender.
The sentences were announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and U.S. Marshal Johnny Hughes.

According to Sopher’s plea agreement, on July 4, 2009, Sopher took two photos of a 3-year-old child who was sleeping in his home, including a sexually explicit photo. Sopher took the photos with his cell phone, then uploaded them to his computer. From May 9, 2009, through September 20, 2009, Sopher exchanged child pornography with other individuals, including the photos he had taken of the young girl at his home. On October 28, 2011, a search warrant was executed at Sopher’s residence. A bedroom, bed linens, and other objects matched the background of the photos Sopher had taken of the young girl. Law enforcement also identified 10 files of child pornography on Sopher’s digital media, including one of the images Sopher had taken of the girl.

Kansas City, MO
David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Missouri man was sentenced in federal court today for producing child pornography.

On February 4, 2011, Stahl pleaded guilty to using a minor (identified as John Doe), with whom he had a relationship through a volunteer mentoring organization, to create hundreds of images of child pornography.

Stahl began sponsoring the minor victim through a local mentoring service in 2006, when the victim was 9 years old. As a mentor, Stahl was placed in a position of trust and interacted with the minor victim on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. The victim spent a great deal of time at Stahl’s home and was taken by Stahl on trips outside the Kansas City-area and out of state.

Madison, WI
John W. Vaudreuil, United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, announced that Matt Hendrickson, 23, of St. Cloud, Minnesota, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge William Conley to 12 years in prison for distributing child pornography. Hendrickson pleaded guilty to this charge on November 7, 2011.

A search warrant was executed at Hendrickson’s dorm room at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on September 23, 2010. Officers found a laptop computer containing a peer-to-peer file-sharing program with over 19,000 files containing child pornography that Hendrickson was distributing via GigaTribe. The majority of the images contained males under the age of 18 engaged in sexually explicit conduct, as well as sadistic and masochistic conduct in which young children were tied by their hands and feet and had tape across their faces and objects inserted in their body cavities.

The University of Wisconsin Police computer forensic team also located all of Hendrickson’s chat sessions with his “friends” on GigaTribe. These chat sessions show Hendrickson talking with his “friends” about sharing, viewing, and downloading images of child pornography using the GigaTribe program.

Officers found in a dresser in the room a package of boys underwear, along with items related to sexual activity. On a bookshelf in the room, officers found a pamphlet-style booklet titled Lollipops and Mushroom Clouds. On the cover of the booklet was the name Matthew Hendrickson, Section 302. Page two of the booklet stated it is based on a true story. The booklet contains a discussion of pedophilia and an argument as to why pedophilia is just another form of sexual deviance, and should not be considered immoral or unnatural.

Evansville, IN
In November 2010, the Evansville Police Department responded to a report of child abuse from a concerned individual who had been sent images depicting the sexual abuse of a minor on her cell phone. That individual indicated that she had received the images from Larry Everett Hodge. Child abuse detectives were contacted to initiate an investigation.

Detectives went to the Hodge residence to speak with the couple, at which point it was immediately apparent that both knew about the abuse of the child, later identified as an 8-year-old female. Larry Hodge admitted in an interview with law enforcement that he had engaged in oral sex with the victim and was arrested on charges of child molestation.

The full extent of the abuse was later established during an examination of a Memorex data storage disc taken during a search of the Hodge residence. Agents identified at least seven separate digital photography sessions and two videos that were saved on the disc by Larry Hodge, all of which depicted sexual abuse of the minor. Some of the videos and images depicted sexual abuse by Larry Hodge himself, while others depicted sexual abuse by Emma Dell Hodge.