SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced today that Jason Michael Herman, age 39, of Pine Grove, PA, was sentenced on May 5, 2022, to 120 months’ imprisonment to be followed by a 10-year term of supervised release, by United States District Court Judge Robert D. Mariani, for possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, during the Fall of 2020, Herman uploaded 9 videos (or approximately 675 images) of child pornographic content onto an internet-based social media application, including images showing the abuse of minors under the age of 12, and sent the videos to other users. At the time of this offense, Herman had a prior 2007 New Jersey conviction for possessing child pornography, the existence of which resulted in an enhancement of his federal sentence to a mandatory term of imprisonment of 120 months. At sentencing, Judge Mariani also ordered that Herman comply with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – Philadelphia Division. Assistant United States Attorney Jeffery St. John prosecuted the case.
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.”
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