KNOXVILLE, Tenn.- On August 31, 2015, David Anthony Shoemaker, 29,of Knoxville, Tenn., was sentenced by the Honorable Pamela R. Reeves, U.S. District Judge, to serve 120 months in prison for receiving child pornography. Following his release from prison, Johnson will be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for a term of 15 years and will be required to register with the sex offender registry in any state in which he resides, works, or attends school.

Shoemaker pleaded guilty in April 2015 to a federal charge stemming from his use of peer-to-peer computer file sharing software to obtain child pornography via the internet. A search warrant for Johnson’s computers revealed that he had had saved a large cache of child pornography to his computers via the use of search terms designed to find depictions of sexual abuse of minors. The Court found that Shoemaker had also distributed child pornography via the peer-to-peer software.

This investigation was conducted by the Knoxville Police Department Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Morris represented 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 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.