A San Diego man was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years in federal custody for distributing child pornography.
Prosecutors say Christopher Duane Wade, 41, admitted last year to sending child porn to others and engaging in a sexually explicit conversation with an undercover agent posing as a teenage girl.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Wade started talking with an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent in April 2019, thinking she was a 13-year-old girl. They arranged to meet following "more than a week of sexually explicit chats," at which point Wade was arrested.
Agents seized his cell phone, which contained pornography depicting "the abuse of very young children," as well as discussions with other people in which he encouraged them "to sexually abuse minors to whom they had access, and to document such abuse for purposes of distributing it to others."
Following his 135-month federal prison term, Wade will be on supervised release for 10 years, during which he will be prohibited from having contact with minors, among other conditions, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"One of our most important roles as prosecutors is to protect our nation's vulnerable children," said U.S. Attorney Robert Brewer. "In addition to personally engaging in despicable conduct, this defendant worked to recruit others to follow in his footsteps. The sentence set forth today makes our community safer and recognizes the severe harm child pornography inflicts on its victims."
