Sacramento Man Pleads Guilty to Transportation of Child Pornography

SACRAMENTO, CA—Acting United States Attorney Lawrence G. Brown announced today that MARK ANTONIE LAWSON, 26, of Sacramento, pleaded guilty last Friday before United States District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton to transportation of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Kyle Reardon, who prosecuted the case, on March 10, 2003, an undercover FBI agent in Buffalo, N.Y. signed onto an Internet relay chat and encountered LAWSON, using the screen name “Voraneus,” advertising child pornography through an “f-serve.” An f-serve is a file-sharing program that allows an individual to make a portion of their hard drive available to others. The f-serve offered to download five images from LAWSON’s computer in exchange for every image uploaded onto LAWSON’s computer.

The undercover agent accessed the f-serve by uploading corrupted files of child pornography to LAWSON’s computer. In return for providing this upload, the undercover agent was able to download from LAWSON’s computer 37 images of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The undercover agent was also able to observe some of the other files saved on LAWSON’s computer and noticed that LAWSON had a well-organized collection of child pornography.

 LAWSON is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Karlton on Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 9:15 a.m. The maximum statutory penalty is no less than five years and up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a life term of supervised release. Pursuant to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, LAWSON will also be required to register as a sex offender. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables and any applicable statutory sentencing factors. 

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