PREVIOUSLY:

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From the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California:

Keith Monroe Wallace was sentenced today (Sept. 11) to 60 months in prison for possession of child pornography, announced Acting United States Brian J. Stretch and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Ryan L. Spradlin.

Wallace, 53, of Eureka, Calif., pleaded guilty on June 24, 2015, to possession of child pornography.  According to the plea agreement the defendant admitted to knowingly possessing 600 or more visual depictions of prepubescent minors or minors who had not attained 12 years of age engaging in sexually explicit conduct.  The images included depictions of sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence.  Wallace was indicted by a federal grand jury on March 10, 2015, and charged with one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(4)(B) and (b)(2).

At the time of his arrest, Wallace was employed by the Humboldt County Juvenile Probation Office as a Supervising Juvenile Corrections Officer in the Northern California Regional Facility in Eureka.  According to court documents, federal law enforcement agents with HSI were led to Wallace as a result of an investigation into the sexual exploitation of children in the Northern District of California.  On February 26, 2015, a federal search warrant was executed at Wallace’s residence in Eureka.  HSI agents and Humboldt County District Attorney Investigators seized various computers and digital media storage devices pursuant to the search warrant.  A forensic review of the computers and digital media storage devices seized from Wallace’s residence revealed the existence of videos and images depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.  Wallace was taken into federal custody at the time of the execution of the search warrant.

The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Charles R. Breyer, U.S. District Judge.  Judge Breyer also sentenced Wallace to a ten-year period of supervised release and a number of other conditions.  One such condition is that Wallace will be required to register with the state sex offender registration agency as required by state law.  Restitution will be determined by the court at a later date.  The defendant will begin serving his prison term immediately.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Claudia A. Quiroz is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Marina Ponomarchuk.  The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the HSI Child Exploitation Investigations Group, as well as investigators from the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.

If members of the public have any information relevant to this investigation or regarding child sexual exploitation crimes they are encouraged to call the ICE tip line at 1-866-347-2423 (1-866-DHS-2ICE).