Man Convicted of Receiving, Soliciting, and Promoting Child Pornography

A federal jury convicted a Virginia man today for downloading images and videos depicting children as young as four years old being sexually abused and for utilizing the Darknet to solicit and promote child pornography.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Christopher Sueiro, 39, of Fairfax, used a peer-to-peer network to download images of child sexual abuse. Sueiro was also a member of a Darknet hidden service website dedicated to trafficking in child sexual abuse material of preteen boys, where he made posts promoting and soliciting images and videos of child sexual abuse and attempted to receive it from other users of the website. Sueiro’s electronic devices included documents describing graphic sexual abuse of children and a guide to how to find child pornography online. He downloaded images and videos of child sexual abuse repeatedly over the course of at least four years, amassing thousands of images and videos.

Sueiro was convicted of four counts: receipt; attempted receipt; possession; and solicitation of child pornography. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16, 2021, and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine the sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Acting U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh for the Eastern District of Virginia; Special Agent in Charge Raymond Villanueva of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C.; and Colonel Erin Schaible, Chief of the City of Fairfax Police Department made the announcement. 

HSI and the City of Fairfax Police Department investigated the case, with significant assistance from the High Technology Investigative Unit (HTIU) of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS).

CEOS Trial Attorney James E. Burke IV and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Smith III of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case.

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 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.justice.gov/psc.