El Dorado, Arkansas – Duane (DAK) Kees, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced that Justin Grant Crain, age 38, of El Dorado, Arkansas was sentenced today to 148 months in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release on one count of knowing receipt of child pornography. The Honorable Susan O. Hickey presided over the sentencing hearing in the United States District Court in El Dorado.
According to court records, in April of 2016, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children forwarded information to the Arkansas State Police that images of child pornography were uploaded to cloud storage associated with a specific phone number. A resulting investigation by the Arkansas State Police and the Department of Homeland Security revealed that the images were uploaded by Crain. Crain was identified as a Union County Sheriff’s Deputy and former El Dorado Police Officer. The Arkansas State Police obtained and executed a federal search warrant on Crain’s cell phone while he was at work and found that he possessed over fifty images of child pornography. Crain was arrested on a federal criminal complaint obtained on June 3, 2016 for Accessing the Internet with the Intent to View Child Pornography and Receipt of Child Pornography. Crain was terminated as an employee of the Union County Sheriff’s Office.
A subsequent federal search warrant executed by the Arkansas State Police and the United States Secret Service on Crain’s electronic devices found that Crain possessed approximately 850 additional images of child pornography at his home. Crain was indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in the Western District of Arkansas in June of 2016 on federal charges and later pleaded guilty to the knowing receipt of child pornography in March of 2017.
This case was investigated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Arkansas State Police Cybercrimes Unit, the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service, the Union County Sheriff’s Office, and the Arkansas Internet
Crimes Against Children Taskforce. Assistant United States Benjamin Wulff prosecuted the case for the United States.
--DOJ Western District Arkansas