GREENSBORO, N.C. – A man who pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography was sentenced Friday, December 4, 2020, announced Matthew G.T. Martin, United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina.
PHILIP STEPHEN STALLINGS, 41, of Durham, North Carolina, pleaded guilty on June 9, 2020, to one count of transportation of child pornography. He was sentenced by United States District Judge William L. Osteen, Jr. to 150 months of imprisonment followed by 15 years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay a total of $17,000 in restitution to five victims.
In December 2018, special agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) became aware that an individual was using a popular mobile messaging application to share child pornography. They ultimately identified the perpetrator as STALLINGS. On June 19, 2019, HSI special agents and investigators with the Durham County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at STALLINGS’ Durham residence. They recovered three electronic devices and identified a cloud storage account that contained child pornography. File created-on dates indicated that STALLINGS had possessed many of the files for approximately three years or more.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with the assistance of the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Eric L. Iverson and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.