An Athens man has been sentenced to serve six years in prison for possession of child pornography. Steven Strang Jr., 38, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Bangor by Judge John A. Woodcock, Jr.
The prison term is to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. Strang Jr. pleaded guilty to the charges in May after waiving his right to have the case against him heard by a grand jury.
Strang came under investigation in June 2015 when a federal agent from the Department of Homeland Security was able to download three child pornography files being offered on line via Strang’s computer, according to a prosecution document filed with the court.
According to court records, from about June 15, 2015, to about August 20, 2015, Strang possessed dozens of video files depicting child pornography, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. Many of these videos, which he had purposely sought out and downloaded from the internet, depicted the sexual exploitation of prepubescent children under the age of 12.
The investigation was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit.
“When agents came to the defendant’s residence, they discovered the defendant’s computer, with internal hard drive, containing dozens of video files depicting child pornography. All of these videos showed actual children being sexually abused or exploited, and many of the videos showed the sexual abuse of actual prepubescent children under the age of 12,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Ruge wrote in the prosecution document.
The judge ordered Strang to be taken into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after pleading guilty.
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter:@Doug_Harlow
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