Man sentenced to 15 years for possession of child pornography

By Rich Coleman

Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

A convicted sex offender from North Las Vegas has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for the receipt and possession of child pornography, officials said.

Ezra Hallock, 43, has a prior felony conviction in Idaho for sexual abuse of a minor and was subject to a 15-year minimum mandatory sentence under federal law, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan sentenced Hallock to 15 years in prison and lifetime of supervised release.

In 2005, agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Seattle began an investigation involving the transmission of child pornography over the internet. Targets of the investigation were using Google’s “Hello” program to send and receive digital child pornography images, officials said.

After determining Hallock as one of the distributors, ICE agents searched Hallock’s North Las Vegas residence in October 2006 and recovered two laptop computers, 13 hard drives, more than 1,300 media storage devices and more than 600 images and movies of child pornography, the Justice Department said.

Hallock has been in federal custody since he was arrested on Dec. 17, 2006. He was convicted on May 18.

“For the second time in a week, a defendant has been sentenced to 15 years minimum in prison for a federal child pornography conviction in Nevada,” said Daniel G. Bogden, U.S. attorney for the District of Nevada. “Convicted sex offenders who think they can sexually abuse children through the use of technology will be tracked down by federal, state and local investigators, and face stiff penalties when caught.”