North Texas man sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for transporting and shipping child pornography

DALLAS — A north Texas man was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey to 15 years in federal prison and a five-year term of supervised release, following his guilty plea in November to one count of transporting and shipping child pornography.

This sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Walter Eugene Rogers, 33, of Watauga, Texas, has been in custody since he was arrested in Georgia by officers with the Tallapoosa Police Department on a related charge outlined in a criminal complaint.

According to documents filed in the case, an HSI special agent conducting an undercover investigation to identify persons distributing child pornography through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks identified a specific computer that was associated with sharing images of child pornography. The undercover special agent downloaded some of the 384 files available for sharing that had names indicative of child pornography, and found that they contained images of child pornography.

Based on the downloaded images, a warrant was executed at Rogers' home in Watauga in November 2011 and agents seized a computer and related storage devices, as well as a bag of printed child pornography images. Rogers admitted he had been downloading child pornography since the mid-1990s and that he is attracted to boys 9 to 12 years old. Rogers also admitted that he had images and videos of sex acts, bondage and other sadistic acts involving children, and that he had downloaded child pornography just a few hours before agents arrived that day.

HSI investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks, Northern District of Texas, prosecuted this case.

This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide HSI initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders and child sex traffickers. HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-347-2423 or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-843-5678.

HSI is a founding member and current chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.