ROANOKE, VA. — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Virginia, Western), published as received.

ROANOKE, Va. – A Wytheville, Virginia man with criminal convictions dating to the late 1990s was sentenced yesterday to a total of 174 months in federal prison for possessing child sexual abuse material. 

Christopher Matthew Marsh, 49, recently pled guilty in the Western District of Virginia to possessing child sexual abuse material involving infants and toddlers. 

According to court documents, in 1997, Marsh was convicted in Florida of attempted sexual battery of a minor under the age of twelve and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. As a result of that conviction, Marsh was required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

In 2017, Marsh was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia for violating his registration requirements under SORNA. 

In February 2025, while Marsh was on supervised release for his 2017 SORNA conviction, the U.S. Probation Office conducted an unannounced search of the motel room where Marsh was staying in Wytheville, Virginia.  The U.S. Probation Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation analyzed the contents of one of Marsh’s cell phones. The phone contained approximately 2000 images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and most of the images involved toddlers and infant girls. The analysis revealed that Marsh used the phone to search the internet for images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and download the images.

In addition to his prison sentence, the Court ordered Marsh to serve five years of supervised release after prison, and pay $71,500 in restitution to identified victims.   

First Assistant United States Attorney Robert N. Tracci and Ian Kaufmann, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division made the announcement. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Probation Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Whit Pierce is prosecuting the case.