[KNOXVILLE, Tennessee] Dustin Schaud Fox, 29, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was sentenced by the Honorable Pamela L. Reeves, Chief U.S.  District, to serve 324 months in federal prison for coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography and for possessing child pornography.  Following his imprisonment, Fox will be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years and will be required to register with the state sex offender registry in any state in which he lives, works, or attends school.

            The investigation arose after the mother of a 14 year-old girl in Texas informed local a law enforcement agency that an adult male, later identified as Fox, had established an online relationship with her daughter and had directed the minor to record videos of herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct and send them to him through social media.  “This prosecution represents part of our efforts to work with law enforcement agencies to protect children from persons who manipulate kids online for child pornography,” said J. Douglas Overbey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.  U.S. Attorney Overbey encouraged parents to be vigilant concerning the online activities of their children, “these predators secretly operate from the shadows of the internet, seek out vulnerable minors, pretend to befriend them, and then prey upon the minors’ vulnerability, unbeknownst to the parents.”

            The case was investigated locally by the Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew T. Morris represented the United States at in Court.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), 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, PSC 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 PSC, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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