KNOXVILLE, Tenn.- On March 28, 2018, James Edward Hiatt, 33, of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was sentenced by the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, Chief U.S. District Judge, to serve 168 months in federal prison for distributing and possessing child pornography. Following his release from prison, Hiatt will be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for 14 years and required to register with the sex offender registry in any state in which he resides, works, or attends school.

Hiatt pleaded guilty in May 2017 to federal charges stemming from his use of peer-to-peer file sharing software to obtain child pornography and make child pornography available for others to download via the internet. A search of Hiatt’s residence resulted in the seizure of evidence confirming that he had been distributing child pornography that he had accessed, downloaded, and stored on his computer.

This investigation was conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Morris represented the United States in court proceedings.

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, 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.

###