Oklahoma Man Sentenced to Six Years in Federal Prison for Child Pornography

            Texarkana, Arkansas - Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced that Patrick Kellam, age 43, of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison and fifteen (15) years of supervised release on one count of Transportation of Child Pornography.  The sentencing hearing took place before the Honorable Susan O. Hickey in the United States District Court in Texarkana.

            According to the Plea Agreement, in March of 2013, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) had been notified that a cell phone and email address confirmed to belong to customer Patrick Kellam accessed and attempted to upload images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.  NCMEC notified the Arkansas State Police who turned the investigation over to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) who were able to locate Kellam in Broken Bow after he had moved there from Arkansas.  Agents contacted him at his home, and he acknowledged that he did access images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and knew it as wrong.  He admitted that child pornography was on his cell phone and that he had been downloading the images from different websites for some time.  The devices that he had been using since 2013 were turned over to the Arkansas State Police who conducted a forensic analysis where they found child pornography on all of the devices.  When Kellam moved from Arkansas to Oklahoma he transported in interstate commerce 67 images of child pornography, one of which depicted a child between the age of 6 – 9 years old being sexually assaulted by an adult male.    

           Kellam was indicted by a federal grand jury in March, 2016 and pleaded guilty to the charge in May, 2016. 

           “HSI works everyday with our state and local law enforcement partners to ensure the perpetrators of these despicable crimes are brought to justice”, said Special Agent in Charge of HSI New Orleans Raymond R. Parmer, Jr. “We will continue to aggressively investigate any allegations of child exploitation and seek justice for the victims.”

            The investigation was led by Homeland Security Investigations and the Arkansas State Police.  Assistant United States Attorney Candace Taylor prosecuted the case for the United States.

            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 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