British Citizen Pleads Guilty to Child Exploitation Charge

WASHINGTON – A British citizen pleaded guilty today in the District of Hawaii to one count of producing child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii Florence T. Nakakuni.

Simon Jasper McCarty, 39, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright. McCarty admitted that between 2005 and 2007, he molested three different prepubescent boys outside of the United States and produced videos of the molestation.

McCarty was apprehended on Aug. 5, 2008, when he attempted to fly from Hawaii to Oahu with computer media that contained child pornography. A forensics examination of the media revealed approximately 400 still images and nearly 200 videos of child pornography. Approximately 60 of the videos featured the three minors who were molested by McCarty. McCarty brought the computer media with him when he flew from the United Kingdom to Oahu on July 28, 2008.

McCarty is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12, 2012. At sentencing, McCarty will face a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, up to a lifetime term of supervised release and an order of restitution.

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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. 

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Olson of the District of Hawaii and Assistant Deputy Chief Alexandra Gelber and Trial Attorney Mi Yung Park of CEOS. The case was investigated by the Honolulu Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Hawaii County Police Department, Hawaii Department of Transportation, the Transportation and Security Administration and CEOS’s High Technology Investigative Unit.