Fremont Man Sentenced to Four Years For Child Porn Possession and Extortion

A Fremont man was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a $20,000 fine Wednesday for possessing child pornography and trying to extort explicit photos from a minor over Facebook.

James Dale Brown, 28, pled guilty to the charges at a Feb. 2, 2011 court hearing in front of U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton. Brown admitted that from December 2008 to April 2009, he repeatedly contacted a girl he knew was 14 years old for sexually explicit photographs, according to a Department of Justice press release.

According to the press release, Brown had previously obtained a revealing photograph of the victim. Using the screen name “Bob Lewis,” Brown told the victim that he had the photograph, along with additional pictures. He told her that he would delete all of the photos “from the internet” if she sent him a video of herself performing sexually explicit acts.

In an attempt coerce the victim into sending the video, Brown threatened to show explicit images of the victim to her friends, the report said. The victim, however, resisted his efforts. Brown then sent two images to one of the victim’s friends on April 18, 2009, according to the report. FBI agents executed a search warrant of Brown’s Fremont home on April 23, 2009. He was arrested Aug. 26, 2010.

Part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide program to combat child sexual exploitation, Brown’s case is the first involving attempted extortion of a minor for child pornography via social networking prosecuted in the Northern District of California, according to the press release.