LONDON, KY. — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Kentucky, Eastern), published as received.

LONDON, Ky. - A Williamsburg, Ky., man, Amos Sparkman, 26, was sentenced Thursday, to 27 years in federal prison for production of child pornography, by U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom.

According to his plea agreement, in October 2020, Sparkman started an online relationship with a minor female using the social media platform Snapchat.  Sparkman confessed to a sexual relationship with the minor and possessed a video of the minor performing sexual acts on Sparkman.  Sparkman admitted that he used the minor victim to produce visual depictions of the minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and that the depictions were then transported using Snapchat.

Sparkman was previously convicted of Harassment and Physical Contact with a child  and of Sexual Abuse, Second Degree of another minor.  Sparkman was a registered sex offender at the time he produced child pornography with his third minor victim.  When law enforcement arrested Sparkman, he stated he was planning to meet another girl. 

Sparkman was indicted in January 2020 and entered a guilty plea on March 2, 2021. 

Under federal law, Sparkman must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence, and upon his release from prison will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 10 years.

Carlton S. Shier, IV, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Edward J. Gray-, Acting Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Office, and Colonel Phillip Burnett, Jr., Commissioner of the Kentucky State Police, jointly announced the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI with assistance from the Kentucky State Police.  The United States was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna E. Reed.

This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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