A Colorado man, Christopher Carl Meier, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for his involvement in distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and participating in a dark-web website dedicated to such content. The sentence was announced by the Department of Justice officials.
Court documents revealed that Meier, aged 41 from Denver, continued his criminal activities while on parole for a previous conviction related to sexual exploitation of a child in 2013. He became a member of an illicit website focused on CSAM involving boys and discussions about the sexual abuse of minors. Meier pleaded guilty on July 9 to conspiracy to distribute CSAM and five counts of distribution. Over 18 months, he made more than 600 posts on the site, advertising and distributing illegal images and videos.
Meier admitted to producing some of this material by deceiving boys into believing they were interacting online with a girl their age, coaxing them into inappropriate acts via webcam. The FBI has identified at least 65 victims connected to Meier's actions.
The announcement was made by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch for the District of Colorado; Assistant Director Chad Yarbrough from the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; and Special Agent in Charge Mark D. Michalek from the FBI Denver Field Office.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Child Exploitation Operational Unit along with its Denver Field Office. The case was prosecuted by Acting Deputy Chief Kyle Reynolds from the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alecia L. Riewerts for the District of Colorado.
This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched in May 2006 aimed at combating child sexual exploitation through collaboration among federal, state, and local resources. More information about Project Safe Childhood can be found at www.justice.gov/psc.