A Springfield man was sentenced on March 8 to total of 16 years in prison for receipt of child pornography and a supervised release violation.
According to court documents, William Hemphill, 39, admitted that he downloaded thousands of images and videos of child pornography in February and March 2018. Hemphill, who is currently serving a term of federal supervised release as part of his sentence for an earlier 2006 conviction for possession of child pornography, fled from supervision in Virginia in February 2018. He was arrested in Utah aboard a California-bound train in March 2018, in possession of cocaine and several electronic devices, including a laptop computer. A subsequent forensic examination of these devices revealed that Hemphill had used multiple anonymous Internet services to download and view large quantities of child pornography while on the run in Virginia and elsewhere.
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. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
This case was initiated and investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which is composed of FBI Agents, along with Detectives from the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, Fairfax County Police, Arlington County Police, Prince William County Police, Alexandria City Police, Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department, Leesburg Police Department, USMS and other federal Offices of Inspector Generals.