PITTSBURGH – A former resident of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 72 months’ incarceration followed by 10 years’ supervised release on his conviction of Possession of Material Depicting the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, United States Attorney Cindy K. Chung announced today.
United States District Judge Nora Barry Fischer imposed the sentence on Galen Gray, age 35.
According to information presented to the Court, in and around March 2014, Gray possessed images and videos depicting prepubescent minors and minors who had not attained 12 years of age engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The government further informed the Court that Gray’s personal cell phone contained evidence of Skype and Kik conversations showing that Gray had engaged in online chats in order to seek and receive child sexual abuse material (child pornography). The government also presented the Court with evidence that Gray had accessed the Internet and child sexual abuse material in August and November 2020 while he was on pretrial release and prohibited from doing so. In imposing sentence, Judge Fischer recognized that Gray’s criminal conduct was egregious and stated that consumers, like Gray, create a market for producers of such material. Judge Fischer read and listened to Impact Statements provided by the victims of Gray’s crime and recognized the never-ending cycle of abuse that victims of child pornography crimes are subjected to as their images are used over and over again on the Internet.
Assistant United States Attorney Heidi M. Grogan prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.
United States Attorney Chung commended the FBI Pittsburgh Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, and the North Fayette Township Police Department for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Gray.
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 the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
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