A Walton, Kentucky man, Robert Maxwell Werner, 46, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the extraterritorial production of child pornography. Chief U.S. District Judge David Bunning handed down the sentence on Friday.
Werner, a U.S. citizen who lived in the Philippines from February 2021 through November 2021, admitted to paying a Filipino individual for access to minor victims for sexual acts. He confessed to engaging in sexually explicit conduct with at least one minor and producing visual depictions of this conduct between July and November 2021. Additionally, he transported this material into the United States.
Under federal law, Werner is required to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence. After his release, he will be under supervision by the U.S. Probation Office for two decades.
The sentencing was announced by Supervisory Official Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Paul McCaffrey for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and Assistant Director Chad Yarbrough of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.
The investigation was led by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Operational Unit with help from the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Roth and Trial Attorney Rachel Rothberg from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice.
This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse nationwide. It coordinates federal, state, and local resources to apprehend individuals exploiting children online and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.