Sterling Man Pleads Guilty to Producing Child Pornography
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Shiloh Richard Forrest, 36, of Sterling, Va., has pled guilty to producing child pornography.
Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Daniel Cortez, Inspector in Charge of the Washington Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service; and Michael L. Chapman, Loudoun County Sheriff, made the announcement after the plea was accepted by United States District Judge T. S. Ellis III.
According to court documents, Forrest sent child pornography videos to an undercover U.S. Postal Inspector in December 2010. In June 2011, numerous computers were seized from Forrest’s residence. A September 2011 computer forensics examination revealed that Forrest had used a cellular telephone to record himself engaging in sexual acts with a prepubescent child in his Sterling, Va., apartment and also at an Ocean City, Md., hotel in the summer of 2010.
Forrest pled guilty on May 24, 2012, and faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison when he is sentenced on Aug. 24, 2012.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerald Smagala and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen C. Cain of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the U. S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division are prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
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 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.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov.
