Source: Office of United States Attorneys
LEXINGTON, Ky. – A Debord, Ky., man, Dustin Newsome, 35, was sentenced on Friday to 35 years in prison, by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell for production of child pornography.
According to his plea agreement, in August 2023, the parent of the minor victim called law enforcement and reported that she had located THC vape cartridges in her child’s room. The minor victim stated that he received the cartridges and a cellphone from a mail carrier, later identified as Newsome, in exchange for nude images and sexually explicit videos. Law enforcement discovered nine minor victims that reported having produced sexually explicit images and videos at Newsome’s request.
A search of Newsome’s residence revealed devices that contained numerous sexually explicit images, videos, and recordings of live chats between Newsome and at least four of the minor victims. In addition to the images and videos he produced, there were several hundred images and videos of prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct that Newsome had obtained from the internet and stored on his electronic devices. These images and videos were obtained over many years beginning in 2013.
Under federal law, Newsome must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 10 years. Newsome was also ordered to pay $105,000 in restitution.
Paul McCaffrey, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Michael Stansbury, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Office; and Phillip J. Burnett, Jr., Commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, jointly announced the sentence.
The investigation was conducted by FBI and KSP. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Roth is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. 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.
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