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Trafficker of Child Pornography Receives 18-Year Sentence in
Federal Prison
MONTGOMERY, AL—Former Daleville resident Edward Lee Edens, Jr.,
age 49, was sentenced Friday to 216 months in federal prison for knowingly transporting,
receiving, and possessing child pornography over the Internet, U.S. Attorney Leura G. Canary
announced today. In handing down the sentence, the Honorable Myron H. Thompson, United
States District Judge for the Middle District of Alabama, noted a number of aggravating factors
in the case, including the fact that Edens had not simply possessed images of young children
being sexually abused but had also traded those images online with other Internet users. Judge
Thompson also found that some of the child pornography images and videos in the case depicted
children under the age of 12 being sexually penetrated by adult men.
The sentence is the culmination of an undercover investigation initiated in 2005 by
agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Buffalo, New York. While signed on to
America Online, agents observed Edens trading child pornography images and videos under the
screen name “Cartoonstradeer.” During the course of the investigation, Edens sent an
undercover FBI agent a video of an adult male engaging in sexually explicit conduct with a 4-year-old girl. Ultimately, agents obtained a federal search warrant for Edens’ home in Daleville
and seized a desktop computer found to contain over 600 child pornography images and 17
videos. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was able to identify many of
the children depicted in the illicit images as known child victims from other states and countries.
A federal jury sitting in Dothan, Alabama, found Edens guilty on all six counts of the
indictment on November 14, 2008, after two full days of trial. Michael B. Trotter, a computer
forensic examiner with the Alabama District Attorney’s Association – Office of Prosecution
Services, testified during the trial that additional evidence of child pornography trafficking had
been found on the hard drive of Edens’ computer and that the images had been sorted into
folders. The jury also heard testimony that Edens had admitted his involvement with child
pornography to FBI agents. After the verdict was returned, Judge Thompson commented briefly
on the case in open court: “I thought the evidence here was just incredible. It was totally
depraved. Words cannot capture what I saw and heard.”
At sentencing, the government presented statements from several of the child victims
depicted in the images. According to one such victim, now 19, the fear she lives with is not just
in knowing that images of her sexual abuse continue to circulate on the Internet, but that those
images could actually lead to the sexual abuse of other children: “I am horrified by the thought
that other children will probably be abused because of my pictures. Will someone show my
pictures to other kids? Will they see me and think it’s okay for them to do the same thing? Will
some sick person see my picture and then get the idea to do the same thing to another little girl?”
As part of his sentence, upon his release from prison, Edens will spend 15 years on
supervised release, with tight restrictions on his ability to use a computer or to have contact with
anyone under the age of 18. Edens will also be required to register as a convicted sex offender.
“The possession, receipt, and transportation of child pornography is not a victimless
crime. The horrific images of sexual abuse of children are loaded on the Internet and viewed by
offenders over and over again. Each time they are viewed, a child is re-victimized. The U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama will continue to make the prosecution of
these cases a priority,” stated Leura G. Canary, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of
Alabama.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In May 2006, the U.S.
Department of Justice launched Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the
growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’
Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.
Assistant United States Attorney Nathan D. Stump prosecuted the case.
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