Beau Thomas Shores, a 42-year-old resident of Bunker Hill, West Virginia, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the receipt of child pornography. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Gina M. Groh in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Court documents and statements reveal that Shores used his cell phone to access child pornography online. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children alerted law enforcement about this activity. Subsequent searches of Shores' residence, phones, and computers revealed thousands of images and videos depicting child pornography involving children as young as three years old.
In addition to his prison term, Shores was ordered to pay a fine of $64,500 and will be subjected to 30 years of supervised release following his incarceration.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberley Crockett on behalf of the government. It involved investigations by the FBI and the Ranson Police Department under the West Virginia Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse nationwide. The project seeks to marshal federal, state, and local resources for better identification, apprehension, and prosecution of individuals exploiting children through the internet while also working towards identifying and rescuing victims.