FRESNO, Calif. — Gary Lee Briggs, 66, of Fresno, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for receipt and distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents, on Jan. 3, 2020, a concerned citizen reported to law enforcement that Briggs appeared to be trying to lure an eight-year-old boy into Briggs’s apartment in Fresno. When officers confronted Briggs, he reported that he planned to test his ability to withstand urges that attracted him to the boy. Briggs also admitted that Facebook recently had terminated his account for having transmitted sexually explicit material on that platform. Facebook separately had notified the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that Briggs’s Facebook account had been used to transmit sexually explicit images of minors from August through December 2019.
This case was the product of an investigation by the Central Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, specifically the Fresno Police Department, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, and Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gappa 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 those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. Click on the “resources” tab for information about internet-safety education.