Hello, my name is Glen Obedin and I am a criminal defense attorney. I specialize in federal criminal defense work. I want to discuss a delicate subject right now, but something that unfortunately I do represent a lot of clients on in federal court and that’s possession or trafficking of child pornography.
Now that’s a charge that you can be charged with in the state court, but there are key differences if you’re charged in state as opposed to being charged federally.
In federal court, there are mandatory minimum jail sentences depending on what exactly you are charged with doing. If you have simple possession of child pornography, then there is no mandatory minimum jail sentence attached to your case.
However, if you have trafficked in it and what I mean by trafficking is not selling it but if you have received any child pornography over the internet, that is considered trafficking and then there are mandatory minimum jail sentences attached if you’re convicted.
The typical way that people receive these types of files is through these web servers that they go on where free files are available, file sharing sites. If you download anything from a file sharing site and it turns out to be child pornography in the federal system you’ve trafficked in it and are therefore subject to mandatory jail time.
Another big difference between the federal and the state prosecution in this type of case is the amount of jail time that the particular governmental agency is seeking. In the federal system it’s based upon how many files you have, and there’s a somewhat complicated calculation that’s done but basically if you have one video it’s equivalent to a certain number of photos, and it doesn’t take a lot of videos to reach an inordinately high amount of the equivalent of photographs and that can send you into a range where you’re looking at in excess of ten years incarceration.
So as with anything else, if you are approached by federal authorities or unfortunately arrested by federal authorities, it’s imperative that you speak with an experienced federal attorney immediately, someone can intercede quickly and potentially reduce those mandatory minimum jail sentences on your behalf.
If you have any further questions regarding this and you need to speak with a criminal defense lawyer please call the Law Office of Naiburg, Obedin and Weissman at (631) 979-7777.