United States Attorney Jan Sharp announced that John Dethlefs, age 54, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced today in federal court in Omaha for receipt of child pornography. United States District Judge Brian C. Buescher sentenced Dethlefs to 96 months of imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After completing his term of imprisonment, Dethlefs will begin a 10-year term of supervised release. Dethlefs was also ordered to pay $12,000 in restitution and a $5,000 special assessment.
On February 24, 2019, Dethlefs uploaded an image of child pornography to Microsoft Bing’s search function. Dethlefs was trying to locate child pornography on the internet. On August 13, 2019, officers executed a search warrant at Dethlefs’s Omaha residence. Officers obtained Dethlefs’s computer which contained about 1,900 images of child pornography. The child pornography included children ages 2 to 16-years-old. Five of the images included bondage and one image included bestiality. Dethlefs admitted to possessing child pornography.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorney’s 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.
The case was investigated by the Omaha Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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