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Friday, July 26, 2024

For Immediate Release

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

 

Gulfport, Miss.  — A Vancleave man was sentenced today to nine years in federal prison, followed by ten years of supervised release, for possession of over 83,000 depictions of child pornography.

According to court documents, Cameron Willis Cotrill, 68, was identified in an online child exploitation investigation as being a user on the BitTorrent network for offenders possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material.  Further investigation revealed that Cotrill possessed 2,308 image files and 1,082 video files, which constituted 83,458 known visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Cotrill was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 21, 2023, and pled guilty on December 19, 2023, to possession of child pornography.

At today’s sentencing hearing, the Court also ordered restitution for the victims in the amount of $237,194.12. Cotrill must also pay a $5,000 assessment under the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018, and $5,000 under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015.

U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee and Special Agent in Charge Robert Eikhoff of the Federal Bureau of Investigation made the announcement.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Cyber Crime Division at the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office.

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.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones prosecuted the case.

 

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