CHICAGO-(ENEWSPF)- A Chicago man was sentenced last Friday to 12 years in federal prison for transporting, receiving, and possessing child pornography, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. The defendant, Winton Nail, is in federal custody and must serve at least 85 percent of the 144-month sentence before he will be eligible for release, at which time he will remain under court supervision for five additional years. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Ronald A. Guzman in federal court in Chicago.
Nail was arrested in April 2009, and pleaded guilty in January 2010 to two counts of transporting and shipping child pornography, one count of receiving child pornography, and two counts of possessing child pornography, all via computer. Nail faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the transportation and receipt counts, and 10 years in prison on each of the possession counts.
Nail was arrested after he sent videos of child pornography to an undercover law enforcement officer during a chat in an Internet chat room. According to court documents, a subsequent search of his computers and e-mail accounts revealed more than 1,000 images and videos of child pornography, as well as hundreds of online chats with other individuals about child pornography. The chats showed that Nail had conversations with at least eight individuals who identified themselves as minors between 11 and 14 years old and that he engaged in explicit sexual talk with them, including discussions of videos of child pornography that he said he had sent to them. According to court documents, Nail sought to expand his child pornography collection by trading images and videos of child pornography through chat rooms and through various e-mail accounts. There was no allegation or evidence that Nail engaged in any illegal sexual conduct with minors.
The case was investigated by the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its Innocent Images Task Force. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Angel Krull.
