August 31, 2009
THORNTON MAN SENTENCED TO SERVE 15 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR POSSESSION AND RECEIPT OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
DENVER – Kenneth Dean Sturm, age 49, of Thornton, Colorado, was sentenced late last week by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Lewis T. Babcock to serve 180 months (15 years) in federal prison for possession and receipt of child pornography, United States Attorney David Gaouette and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Copp announced. Following his lengthy prison term, Sturm was ordered to spend 20 years on supervised release, and to register as a sex offender as well as undergo sex offender treatment. Sturm, who appeared in court in custody, was remanded.
Kenneth Dean Sturm was first charged by Criminal Complaint on August 11, 2006. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver on August 22, 2006. Superseding indictments were obtained on October 5, 2006 and on October 23, 2007, and then again on October 21, 2008. The defendant was found guilty following a nine-day jury trial on June 18, 2009. The jury deliberated for less than one day before returning the guilty verdicts.
According to the facts presented at trial, the third superseding indictment, as well as the original affidavit in support of the Criminal Complaint, between January 1, 2005 and May 5, 2006, Sturm knowingly and unlawfully possessed material that contained child pornography, that had been shipped and transported in interstate and foreign commerce by any means, including by computer. The indictment also states that on June 8, 2005, Sturm knowingly and unlawfully received material that contained one or more images of child pornography, that had been mailed, shipped and transported in interstate commerce by any means, including by computer.
In October 2005, ICE special agents working in Newark, New Jersey, initiated an investigation of a child pornography website. The operators of the website were discovered to be selling child pornography image and video subscriptions to hundreds of individuals throughout the United States. Sturm was one of those individuals. The affidavit further states that Sturm is a registered sex offender who was convicted on April 20, 2006 in Adams County, Colorado of failure to register as a sex offender. He was on probation at the time of the indictment.
“Lengthy prison sentences, like the one handed down in this case, should send a message to child predators that there will be severe consequences for sexually exploiting our children,” said U.S. Attorney David Gaouette.
“Since so many innocent children are traumatized for life by those who produce, share and possess child pornography, the significant prison sentence handed down in this case fits the crime,” said Jeffrey Copp, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Denver. “ICE continues to actively target and pursue anyone who sexually exploits children.” Copp oversees a four-state area, which includes: Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.
This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Thornton Police Department, with the Rocky Mountain Regional Computer Forensic Lab assisting with the investigation.
The Sturm trial was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Davies, the chief of the Special Prosecutions Section of the United States Attorney’s Office, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Krislene Lorenz. Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Smith assisted with the prosecution.
This case was brought 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 Attorney’s 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.
####
