Jacksonville, Florida – U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard has sentenced Harrison Holland Frith (40, Ponte Vedra Beach) to 7 years and 11 months in federal prison for receiving a video depicting child sexual abuse. Frith was also ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution to a victim of his crimes, to serve 10 years of supervised release upon his release from prison, and to register as a sex offender. Frith had pleaded guilty on October 27, 2021.
According to court documents, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Jacksonville received information from HSI agents in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that the agents had identified a man in Arkansas who was communicating online with others, including Frith, via Zoom and RingCentral meeting platforms to share child sexual abuse material. The content shared included videos of the Arkansas man sexually abusing a child between the ages of 5 and 6 years old. Frith is seen on a video made by the Arkansas man masturbating while watching a video of the Arkansas man sexually abusing the child. Frith can be heard expressing his desire to sexually abuse the child as well. HSI (Fayetteville) discovered Frith in other social media chatrooms, in which child sexual abuse material was discussed and shared.
On May 18, 2021, HSI (Jacksonville) executed a federal search warrant at Frith’s residence in Ponte Vedra Beach and encountered Frith at home. In an interview with agents, Frith admitted to receiving child sexual abuse videos over the internet and to participating in online video meetings with others during which child sexual abuse videos were played. He also acknowledged requesting videos of the sexual abuse of children as young as 8 years old. Frith told agents they would find files of child sexual abuse material on his laptop computer. He also said that he had viewed such material the night before agents had arrived. A search of Frith’s electronic devices yielded child sexual abuse material on four devices including two laptop computers, an iPad, and a thumb drive. One such file received by Frith in April 2021 showed an adult male removing the diaper from a baby boy and then his sexual assault of the baby.
“A child is re-victimized every time a predator views or shares child pornography,” said HSI Jacksonville Assistant Special Agent in Charge K. Jim Phillips. “HSI Jacksonville, and our partners with Clay County Sheriff’s, St. Johns Sheriff’s Office and HSI Fayetteville, are working diligently to ensure these predators are identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these heinous crimes.”
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, and the Clay County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kelly S. Karase.
This is another case 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.