A man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for production of child pornography on Friday.
Paul Dale Pollitt, III (40) was also ordered to forfeit the cell phone he had used to commit the offense.
According to court documents, an undercover police detective working as part of a multi-jurisdictional Child Exploitation Task Force posted an online advertisement on a site used by individuals that have a sexual interest in children.
In November 2015, Pollitt reached out to this undercover officer, believing him to be a man similarly interested in this type of activity.
Pollitt chatted with the undercover officer for several days and traded multiple images of a child, including an image of child pornography. Pollitt told the undercover officer that he would be seeing the child the following weekend, and intended to take additional photographs of her.
Law enforcement officers then engaged in an effort to identify and locate Pollitt before he would again have access to the victim.
Ultimately, Pollitt was arrested and his electronic devices were seized. A review of those devices revealed that Pollitt had been chatting with anonymous men online about molesting the victim for over a year.
Several additional photographs were found of the victim, including several additional images of child pornography.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
