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Wednesday, December 20, 2023

For Immediate Release

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Mississippi

 

Gulfport, Miss. – A Vancleave, Mississippi man pled guilty to possession of more than 9,900 images and videos of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee and Special Agent in Charge Jermicha Fomby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to court documents, Cameron Willis Cotrill, 67, was identified in an online child exploitation investigation on the BitTorrent network for offenders possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material.  As part of the investigation, a direct download was completed of 139 files that were being made available from Cotrill’s device at his Vancleave address. On January 11, 2022, the FBI assisted state officers with the execution of a state search warrant at Cotrill’s address.  Full forensic examinations of Cotrill’s electronic devices recovered at the search determined that Cotrill possessed over 9,900 images and videos on his desktop computer depicting the sexual abuse of children.

Cotrill is scheduled to be sentenced on April 11, 2024, at 10:00 a.m., in Gulfport. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the case with assistance from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

 

MageeNews.com is an online news website covering Simpson and surrounding counties as well as the State of Mississippi.