The investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to identify, investigate and arrest those who prey on children, including human traffickers, international sex tourists, Internet pornographers and foreign-national predators whose crimes make them deportable. The investigation was conducted by ICE-Homeland Security Investigations, the Child Exploitation Section of ICE’s Cyber Crime Center, CEOS, CEOS’s High Technology Investigative Unit and 35 ICE offices in the United States and 11 ICE attaches offices in 13 countries around the world, with assistance provided by numerous local and international law enforcement agencies across the United States and throughout the world. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs provided substantial assistance. Attorney John Luke Walker of the Western District of Louisiana and Trial Attorney Keith Becker of CEOS. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit The case is being prosecuted by Assistant 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 as well as to identify and rescue victims. 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. We hope to make more arrests in the case and bring to justice all of the individuals who perpetrate such vile schemes that endanger children.” I want to thank all of the prosecutors and law enforcement agencies who were involved from the beginning and those who have seen this case through until now. “It took the work of many agencies, both domestic and international, to find and bring these defendants to justice. “There is a lot of work to be done before most, if not all, online operations like this one can be stopped,” Finley stated. Operation Delego represents the largest prosecution to date in the United States of individuals who have participated in an online bulletin board conceived and operated for the sole purpose of promoting child sexual abuse, disseminating child pornography and evading law enforcement. Efforts to identify and apprehend these individuals continue. Fifteen of the 72 charged individuals remain at large and are known only by their online identities. Three defendants have received life sentences, including the one who was convicted at trial. The 48 individuals who have pleaded guilty or found guilty for their roles in the conspiracy have been sentenced to prison and have received sentences ranging between five years to life in prison. Forty-seven individuals have pleaded guilty, and one was convicted after trial. Nine of the 57 are in the process of being extradited to the United States. To date, 57 of the 72 charged defendants have been arrested in the United States and abroad. The board was a private, members-only, online bulletin board that was created and operated to promote pedophilia and encourage the sexual abuse of very young children in an environment designed to avoid law enforcement detection.Ī total of 72 individuals, including Blackford and Davis, were charged as a result of Operation Delego. The charges were the result of Operation Delego, an investigation launched in December 2009 that targeted individuals around the world for their participation in Dreamboard. According to the evidence presented at his guilty plea, during his time on Dreamboard, Davis posted advertisements offering to distribute child pornography to other members of the board.īlackford and Davis were charged in an indictment unsealed on Aug. William Davis, 39, of Bristol, N.H., was sentenced to 210 months in prison with a lifetime of supervised release for his part in the Dreamboard child exploitation operation. 29, 2009, and placed 84 online bulletin board posts containing child pornography. According to the evidence presented at the guilty plea, Blackford joined Dreamboard Dec. Maurice Hicks.Ĭhristopher Blackford, 28, of Charleston, S.C., was sentenced to 265 months in prison with a lifetime of supervised release for participating in a child exploitation operation. custody arrested so far in the Dreamboard child sex exploitation and child pornography site case were sentenced by U.S. Finley announced today that the last two defendants in U.S.
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