Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (b)
United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Edward Charles Lynch, age 76, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced on December 19, 2024, in federal court in Omaha for possession of child pornography. United States District Judge Brian C. Buescher sentenced Lynch to 151 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Lynch’s release from prison, he will begin an 8-year term of supervised release. Judge Buescher ordered Lynch to pay $114,000 in restitution and $7,600 in special assessments.
On June 16, 2022, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received information from Microsoft Bing Image – Online Operations about images of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct being uploaded by a user of the online service. Law enforcement identified the IP address associated with the file upload and determined the subscriber assigned the IP address was Lynch. The IP address was associated with Lynch’s residence in Omaha.
On October 19, 2022, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Lynch’s residence and seized a computer belonging to Lynch. A forensic review of Lynch’s computer identified 443,731 images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Lynch was previously convicted on or about November 1, 1996, of Sexual Assault of Child in Sarpy County, Nebraska.
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 United States Attorney’s 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.
This case was investigated by the Omaha FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.