8 February – LAWFUEL – The Law News Network – R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jesus Torres, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Ken Mascara, Sheriff, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, announced today that defendant, Mark Todd Rader, was sentenced on February 6, 2006 before U.S. District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez, to 151 months’ imprisonment, followed by ten (10) years of supervised release and a $17,500 fine on charges of transmission and possession of child pornography and using the internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.
According to court records, Rader began communicating in an internet chat room in May 2005 with an undercover agent posing as the father of a an eleven year old girl. During internet communications, Rader transmitted a video image to the undercover officer of a toddler-aged child engaged in sexual activity with an adult male. During sexually explicit telephone conversations with the undercover, Rader spoke about engaging in sexual activity with the agent’s minor child, and even spoke with a person he believed to be the child, but who was, in fact, a female deputy posing as a child.
On May 31, 2005, Rader was arrested at his home in Bedford, Texas. ICE agents executed a search of defendant Rader’s residence and computer equipment. A forensic analysis of Rader’s computer confirmed that the defendant had more than eighty images of child pornography, many of them depicting toddler-aged children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Defendant Rader was indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Ft. Pierce, Florida, and charged with transmission of child pornography and use of the internet to entice a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct. As a result of the images found on the defendant’s computer in Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, Texas (in conjunction with the Ft. Worth office) filed an Information against the defendant charging him with possession of child pornography. At the defendant’s request, those charges were transferred to the Southern District of Florida for disposition along with the defendant’s Florida charges.
Mr. Acosta commended the diligent efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, the Bedford and Dallas Police Departments and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Corey Steinberg and Linda Groves.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls . Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on .
