A Lebanon, Tennessee woman has been sentenced to 340 months in federal prison — more than 28 years — for trafficking and sexually exploiting children and producing child sexual abuse material in exchange for money. Alisha Danielle Scudder was convicted of conspiracy, sexual exploitation of a minor, child sex trafficking, and distributing and selling child pornography, and she will also serve 10 years of supervised release once she is out of prison.
The sentence came down earlier this month, on July 27, in federal court in Nashville, according to NewsChannel5 Nashville. U.S. District Judge Eli J. Richardson formally entered judgment last Friday, imposing the term concurrently across five counts along with an $800 special assessment and a final order of forfeiture, according to court filings reviewed by PacerMonitor.
How Investigators Uncovered the Abuse
Federal agents searched Scudder's Lebanon home and recovered electronic devices containing messages and child sexual abuse material, the outlet reported. Prosecutors said Scudder sent images and videos of the abuse to an online co-conspirator in exchange for money, and investigators said she later admitted to producing and sending the material and receiving payments for some of it.
The Lebanon Police Department, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation all worked the case, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, whose leadership issued joint statements detailing the interagency coordination. U.S. Attorney Braden H. Boucek, who announced the sentence, said Scudder committed a profound betrayal of dependent children. The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to marshal federal, state and local resources against child sexual exploitation.
A Case Rooted in 2022 Cybertips
The investigation traces back to October 2022, when the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children sent two CyberTipline reports to law enforcement, the outlet reported. Prosecutors said Scudder had produced child sexual abuse material involving two children younger than 14, with instances dating to June 2019 and again in March 2022.
Scudder was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2023 alongside co-defendant Dewayne Price Jr., under case number 3:23-cr-00002 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, according to PacerMonitor.
Federal Law and a Nationwide Surge in Similar Cases
Federal law helps explain why the sentence landed where it did. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1591, child sex trafficking involving a victim younger than 14 carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison, up to life, and prosecutors do not have to prove force or coercion to secure a conviction, according to the Department of Justice.
Scudder's case also landed amid a sharp rise in similar reports nationally. CyberTipline reports concerning online child sex trafficking jumped 323% in 2025 compared with 2024, a spike largely driven by expanded reporting mandates under the federal REPORT Act, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The organization logged more than 20.5 million total CyberTipline reports in 2024 alone, with major tech platforms and AI developers submitting hundreds of thousands of automated tips to help law enforcement identify explicit material, per the organization's own data.
The Officials Who Led the Case
Lebanon's police department, which took part in the local investigation, has secured federal COPS grant funding to support investigative technology and public safety operations, according to the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations. Judge Richardson, who presided over the case, was confirmed to the Middle District of Tennessee bench in October 2018 after previously serving as an FBI Special Agent, federal prosecutor, and anti-terrorism coordinator, according to Vanderbilt Law School. Boucek was sworn in as U.S. Attorney in December 2025 and formally invested this past June, after previously serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and state prosecutor in Tennessee, the Department of Justice said.
