Youth Umpire Will Spend 17 Years In Prison For Distributing Child Pornography

0
1105

Spokane – William D. Hyslop, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, announced that Matthew Lee Lane, age 48 of Spokane, Washington, was sentenced following conviction after a six-day jury trial in June 2019, of one count of Distribution of Child Pornography, and one count of Possession of Child Pornography. United States District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson sentenced Lane to a 210-month term of imprisonment, to be followed by a life term of court supervision after he is released from federal prison. Judge Peterson also required Lane to register as a sex offender upon completion of his prison sentence.

According to evidence introduced at trial, Lane downloaded thousands of images of child pornography via the internet, and then shredded nearly all of them in an effort to elude law enforcement. But he also transmitted images of child pornography to an undercover FBI agent over a Peer-to-Peer network, which led to a federal search warrant at his residence in North Spokane. Significant indicia of child pornography were recovered from his digital devices, including not only log files indicating that he had downloaded and deleted thousands of child pornography files, but memes involving the kidnapping of children and other forms of sexual exploitation of children. Lane was a youth baseball umpire at the time he was engaging in child exploitation conduct online.

At sentencing, Judge Peterson noted that Lane tried to shred all the evidence of his online child exploitation conduct, which demonstrated both consciousness of guilt and an effort to elude law enforcement. She specifically articulated the dangers of online child pornography, and the ways in which the victims are damaged by their images being traded on the Internet forever. In particular, Judge Peterson noted that Lane contributed to a market for additional abuse by engaging in the downloading and trading of child pornography images. Judge Peterson also noted Lane’s criminal history included a prior conviction for rape.

Facebook Comments