Christopher Michael Sommers, 42, from Slidell, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for possessing child sexual abuse material. The conviction was announced by U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo determined Sommers' fate, additionally assigning him fifteen years of supervised release and imposing a $100 special assessment fee, information found in official court documents suggests that the defendant fell within the grasp of the law following an undercover operation by the Apache Junction Police Department in Arizona, focusing on individuals sharing child sexual abuse material online, with this case developing further until the authorities executed a search warrant on April 3, at Sommers's Slidell residence, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed that during the operation, led by Homeland Security Investigations agents and supported by the local sheriff's office and the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, a 256 gigabyte USB thumb drive was seized, on it were 950 images and videos depicting minors in sexually explicit situations; Sommers was no stranger to the judicial system, with a prior conviction in 2011 for receipt of child pornography prompting an obligatory 10-year minimum sentence enhancement.
Sommers' case highlights the ongoing efforts of Project Safe Childhood, a national campaign by the Department of Justice aimed at curbing the growth of child exploitation, marshaling a fusion of federal, state, and local resources to trace and prosecute internet-based exploiters of children the operation, spearheaded by U.S. Attorney's Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, also focuses on helping the victims. In their appreciation, the U.S. Attorney's Office signaled out multiple agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, the Apache Junction Police Department, and the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, for their combined efforts in bringing this particular case to a close, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian M. Klebba, Chief of the Financial Crimes Unit, handling the prosecution.
