A Columbus man has been sentenced to 136 months in prison and 20 years supervised release after he plead guilty to one count possession of child pornography following a 2018 investigation.
According to a news release from Charlie Peeler, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, Donald McFall, 33, was convicted of sexual abuse in the second degree in the Circuit Court of Russell County, Alabama in 2015. In 2016, he was convicted for felony failure to register as a sex offender in Muscogee County Superior Court.
“McFall clearly has not learned from his prior conviction that anyone who chooses to do harm to our most vulnerable citizens is a priority for FBI investigators and all of our partners in law enforcement,” Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, said in a statement. “Now he will pay a further price and will not be able to threaten any more children during his federal incarceration.”
In 2018, a Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force detective was investigating the trading and downloading of child pornography on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, the release said.
A program configured for law enforcement led to the discovery of 20 files of child pornography, some involving very young children. Those files were found to have been downloaded from an IP address traced to McFall.
In March 2018, law enforcement executed a search warrant at the residence and McFall was arrested after child pornography was found on his phone.
“McFall admitted to having more than 600 images of child pornography on his computer and cell phone, including pornography involving prepubescent children,” the news release said.
“There is a statistical correlation between those that seek out, collect and view child sexual abuse images and those that are actively molesting children,” Debbie Garner, GBI Special Agent in Charge and Commander of the Georgia ICAC Task Force, said in a statement. “The fact that Donald McFall was a registered sex offender and previously convicted of sexual abuse proves this point. We will continue to try to find and rescue child victims of sexual abuse that we would not have otherwise known about by working these child sexual abuse imagery investigations.”
The FBI, the Georgia ICAC Task Force, the GBI and the Columbus Police Department investigated this case.
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