Wiggins Man Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Transportation of Child Pornography

Hattiesburg, Miss. – A Wiggins man was sentenced to serve 60 months in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release, for transporting visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, announced U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and Special Agent in Charge Jermicha Fomby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Mississippi. Restitution to the victims was also ordered.

According to court documents, Charles Ezekiel Spangler, 38, was identified by the FBI when they received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that he uploaded pictures of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct via the internet to his Tumblr account in June of 2018.   

Spangler was indicted by a federal grand jury and he pled guilty on December 2, 2021.

The case was investigated by the FBI with the assistance of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Cyber Crimes Division.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones prosecuted the case.