In a decisive move to combat the distribution of child sexual abuse material, Skyler Shoemaker, 34, of Colorado City, Texas, was handed a 19-year federal prison sentence last week; this comes after his May indictment and subsequent guilty plea in August for Distribution of Child Pornography, reported the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
Shoemaker's egregious activities came to light when it was found he used Facebook Messenger to send a sexually explicit video featuring a child, estimated to be between four and six years old, to his girlfriend, Angel Bradford. He didn't stop there; he also utilized various online platforms to disseminate child pornography to other individuals. Further, the court had evidence of him committing sexual acts in the presence of minors.
According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Bradford was also implicated in the operation; the 33-year-old from Hermleigh, Texas, faced her own indictment alongside Shoemaker. She pled guilty to Receipt of Child Pornography in July and, on November 6, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix to a five-year term in federal custody.
The investigation, spearheaded by the FBI Dallas Field Office – Abilene Resident Agency, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Abilene Police Department's Cyber Crimes Unit, reflects the relentless efforts by authorities to eradicate the sexual exploitation of children, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Whitney Ohlhausen leading the prosecution, as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice to spotlight and suppress the epidemic of child sexual cruelty and mistreatment through cooperative federal, state, and local resources.
