Former State Department Agent Sentenced for Transportation of Child Pornography

TAMPA—United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that United States District Judge Richard A. Lazzara sentenced James Cafferty (45, Largo) to seven years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release, for transporting child pornography. Cafferty pled guilty on January 5, 2012.

According to the plea agreement, FBI agents investigated Cafferty, a former special agent with the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, for his involvement in the possession and transfer of child pornography. On August 29, 2011, agents executed a search warrant at his residence in Largo and seized computer equipment. The equipment contained more than 30,000 images of child pornography. Cafferty admitted that he had the images with him while on duty out of the country and that he had shipped computer equipment containing many of those images from London to the United States when he returned home from his last official government assignment.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Colleen Murphy-Davis and Jay L. Hoffer.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”