Jury Convicts California Man of Receipt of Child Sexual Abuse Material

A federal jury convicted a California man today for receipt of child pornography.

“The defendant was convicted by a jury for collecting videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children, including toddlers and infants who were subject to horrific abuse,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “This content is vile and illegal, and we will aggressively prosecute those who engage with it.”

“Today, a jury found Cragg guilty of crimes that encouraged the gross abuse of our society’s most vulnerable members,” said U.S. Attorney Eric Grant for the Eastern District of California. “The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to target for prosecution and imprisonment those who contribute to this vile conduct.”

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Edward Cragg, 46, of Turlock, California, used a file-sharing program from approximately Aug. 1, 2015, through March 1, 2016, to search for and download more than 130 child sexual abuse videos. He would then watch these videos, sort them, and move them to an external hard drive. Some of the videos depicted images of infants or toddlers being subjected to sadistic or masochistic abuse. Cragg told law enforcement that the child sexual abuse videos were “interesting … like a dead cat on the side of the road.” He also stated that he did not think looking at child sexual abuse material was wrong.

Cragg is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 8 and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI and the Turlock Police Department investigated the case, with substantial assistance from the Justice Department’s High Technology Investigative Unit within the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS).

Trial Attorney McKenzie Hightower of CEOS and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gappa of the Eastern District of California are prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Justice Department to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and 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.justice.gov/psc.