A Webster City, Iowa man who possessed child pornography was sentenced March 2, 2022, to 11 years in federal prison. Brady Vandemark, age 37, received the prison term after an October 14, 2021, guilty plea to possession of child pornography.
In a plea agreement, Vandemark admitted to distributing, receiving, and possessing child pornography. Vandemark’s collection of child pornography contained the equivalent of over 100,000 images, including depictions of minors who had not yet reached 12 years of age. Before his guilty plea and sentencing, Vandemark ran from law enforcement while on pretrial release. Vandemark cut off his monitoring device and months later was discovered in a relative’s home, in a closet behind a fake wall with a loaded rifle. After a lengthy stand-off with law enforcement, where Vandemark was threatening suicide, he was taken into custody without anyone being harmed. At the sentencing hearing, Vandemark apologized for his behavior and credited an FBI Special Agent, whom he said “saved his life that day.”
Vandemark was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand. Vandemark was sentenced to 132 months’ imprisonment. He was ordered to pay $44,000 in restitution to victims in this case. He must also serve a 5-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
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.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”
Vandemark is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ron Timmons and Mikala Purdy-Steenholdt, and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 19-3044.
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