BRISTOL MAN SENTENCED TO 45 YEARS IMPRISONMENT
FOR MANUFACTURING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

United States Attorney John L. Brownlee announced today that STEVEN B. GIBSON, 37, of Bristol, Virginia, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States District Court in Abingdon, Virginia. GIBSON had previously plead guilty to three counts of manufacturing child pornography.

According to evidence presented by Assistant United States Attorney Zachary Lee at an earlier hearing, in July 2006, the FBI Office in Bristol, Virginia, and the Bristol Virginia Police Department received a lead from the Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force regarding an investigation into the distribution, receipt and production of child pornography by STEVEN B. GIBSON. GIBSON was contacted at his residence in Bristol, Virginia, and consented to the search of his computer equipment. GIBSON was also interviewed by the agents of the FBI and Bristol VA Police Department. During this interview, GIBSON admitted trading child pornography over the internet with two men who lived in Minnesota and Florida. GIBSON admitted to viewing webcam images of these men performing sexual acts on young boys. GIBSON also admitted using his own webcam to display three boys, all under the age of 15, nude in his home to others on the internet and to sexually abusing the boys.

Following this initial interview and a preliminary forensic examination of GIBSON’S computer, authorities obtained an arrest warrant, search warrants and GIBSON’S victims were interviewed. The interviews of the victims corroborated GIBSON’S statements that sexual abuse had occurred and that this abuse was broadcast over the internet using a webcam attached to the GIBSON’S computer. Forensic examinations of GIBSON’S computer equipment determined that GIBSON was in possession of over 6,000 images of child pornography and more than 20 movies containing child pornography. The majority of these images had been transmitted over the internet. Furthermore, logs of instant messages were recovered from GIBSON’S computer that demonstrated that there were numerous individuals in different states and countries that were watching the broadcasting of GIBSON’S sexual abuse and making requests for different sexual acts to be performed. These instant messages also showed that GIBSON and others actively attempted to contact juveniles online and encouraged them to send them sexually explicit pictures of themselves. Subsequent to GIBSON’S arrest, he gave a detailed confession to agents of the FBI and Bristol Virginia Police Department in which he described in detail the sexual abuse that had occurred for three years and how he had broadcast it over the internet so that others could watch the abuse.

The investigation of the case was conducted by the Bristol Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bristol Virginia Police Department, and the Knoxville Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Assistant United States Attorney Zachary T. Lee of the United States Attorney’s Office in Abingdon prosecuted the case.