SACRAMENTO, Calif. September 8, 2010 — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that yesterday United States District Judge John A. Mendez sentenced James Thomas Flocker, 70, of Chico, to seven years in prison to be followed by 10 years of supervised release for trading child pornography. On February 26, 2010, a jury found Flocker guilty of transporting child pornography, distributing child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
The evidence introduced at trial, including the testimony of FBI agents, a records custodian from Yahoo, and a computer forensic expert, showed that Flocker posed as a 19-year-old from Southern California and traded pictures with an 18-year-old man in South Carolina. After trading several photographs showing prepubescent boys engaged sexual acts, Flocker sent more pictures of minor boys, including a photograph of a four-year-old boy in Texas whose picture was taken by his uncle, a man later convicted of molesting the young boy.
The trial evidence also showed that in July 2004, Flocker uploaded to a Yahoo group four pictures of nude teenage boys, making them available to all of the members of the group to add to their collection of child pornography or to distribute them to other collectors. One of the pictures was of a young man from Kentucky who was molested by a foster-care provider between the ages of 12 and 14. Images of this boy, along with nearly two-dozen additional images of child pornography were found on Flocker’s computer following a search of his DVD production business on October 27, 2004.
In sentencing, Judge Mendez said that the defendant’s involvement in child pornography was “serious as it represent[ed] an ongoing harm to the minor children who were used in [the images possessed and traded by the defendant.]”
This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the FBI’s Chico Safe Streets Task Force. Members of the Task Force who participated in this case included Special Agents from the FBI as well as members of the California State University, Chico Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Camil A. Skipper and Kyle Reardon prosecuted the case.
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