Department of Justice
United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt
Southern District of Iowa
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEST DES MOINES MAN SENTENCED ON
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CHARGE
Des Moines, IA - On July 23, 2010, Jerry DeAngelo Valdez, age 20, of West Des Moines was sentenced to a term of 70 months imprisonment upon his conviction for receipt of child pornography, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. United States District Court Judge James E. Gritzner ordered Valdez to serve a ten year term of supervised release and be placed on the Sex Offender Registry upon his release from prison. Valdez was also ordered to pay a Crime Victims' Fund assessment of $100.
Valdez pleaded guilty to the receipt of child pornography charge on April 19, 2010. This case arose out of Operation Wirebreaker, which was a joint effort between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that targeted individuals using peer-to-peer file sharing programs to distribute and receive child pornography over the internet. A forensic exam of Valdez' computer revealed that he had downloaded and saved 220 videos and 27 images of child pornography from the internet.
United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt said that federal laws dealing with the sexual exploitation of minors were designed for internet sexual predators. Klinefeldt further added that while the internet has many practical uses, it is also a place where sexual predators lurk and attempt to sexually exploit children. He encouraged concerned citizens to visit the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children website at www.iaicac.net for more information on internet safety.
This case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security,
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Iowa Division of Criminal
Investigation, the West Des Moines, Iowa Police Department and the Iowa Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Force. It was prosecuted by the United States
Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa 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 United States 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.
