Harrison Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for Child Pornography Offense

          Fort Smith, Arkansas - Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced that Kelvin Lee Pratt, age 35, of Harrison, Arkansas, was sentenced to 180 months imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release for Advertising Visual Depictions of a Minor Engaging in Sexually Explicit Conduct.  The sentencing took place before the Honorable P.K. Holmes, III in the United States District Court in Fort Smith.  

          According to court records, from February 18, 2015 to May 20, 2015, Pratt engaged in sexually explicit conversations with an underage minor female using Facebook Messenger, a person to person chat service that sends messages through interstate commerce via a computer network.  Pratt sent sexually explicit images and engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the underage female in an effort to solicit and receive nude pictures of the minor.  Detectives determined that Pratt sent the messages and images from his residence in Harrison.  Pratt was indicted by a federal grand jury in October, 2015 and pleaded guilty to the offense in January, 2016.

          This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.  Assistant United States Attorney Denis Dean prosecuted the case for the United States.

          The 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 their Criminal Division Child Exploitation and Obscenity Sections (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.

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Related court documents may be found on Public Access to Electronic Records Website @www.Pacer.gov