Abilene Woman Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison for Producing Child Pornography

ABILENE, Texas — A 25-year-old woman from Abilene, Texas, Misty Dawn Kelley, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor to 30 years in federal prison, following her guilty plea in February 2016 to an indictment charging one count of production of child pornography and aiding and abetting, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

According to documents filed in the case, in July 2014, Kelley met an individual, she knew as “Randy,” on an online adult webcam site.  In November 2014, “Randy” began sending sexually explicit pictures of his one to two-year-old daughter to Kelley.  Kelley continued to communicate with “Randy” on Kik and Skype, and in early July 2015, during a conversation with “Randy” on Kik, Kelley asked him to perform an act of sexual abuse on his daughter and send her a picture of it.  “Randy” immediately sent Kelley a picture of his daughter, depicting the result of his actions. 

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the Project Safe Childhood (PSC) initiative.  PSC is a department initiative launched in May 2006 to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, tribal and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.  Since FY 2011, the Department of Justice has filed 20,260 PSC cases against 19,111 defendants.  These cases include prosecutions of child sex trafficking; sexual abuse of a minor or ward; child pornography offenses; obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children; selling or buying of children; and many more statutes.  To learn more about PSC’s work, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/psc.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Abilene Police Department investigated the case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lubbock, Texas, was in charge of the prosecution.

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