An Auburn man will serve a lengthy sentence in federal prison for distributing child pornography.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced last week that Jonathan Lee Whitmire was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of an investigation into child pornography that began in Wyoming. The 36-year-old was sentenced in a Gainesville court by U.S. District Judge William C. O’Kelley to the maximum sentence followed by 20 years of supervised release, according to the news release.
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Whitmire was arrested by the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office after an investigation by the Homeland Security Investigations traced emails containing child pornography from a Cheyenne, Wyo. residence to Whitmire’s home.
Whitmore was also charged with molestation of at least two young girls. Searches of Whitmire’s email accounts showed he traded sexually explicit images of young children with a substantial number of other individuals using various email accounts, the release said.
“This defendant amassed a large collection of photos and videos depicting the sexual assault of very young children,” United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in the release. “We will continue to pursue significant sentences for those who trade in the victimization of the most innocent and vulnerable among us.”
Whitmire will have to register as a sex offender after he is released from prison.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the BCSO and the Barrow County District Attorney’s Office as a part of Project Safe Childhood. The nationwide initiative was launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
“As long as there are predators in our society who traffic in the rape of children for their perverse desires, there will be HSI special agents a few steps behind them working tirelessly to seek justice for the victims of this pernicious crime,” said Brock D. Nicholson, Special Agent in Charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Atlanta.
For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the home page for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.
