A man who possessed child pornography pled guilty on March 28, 2011, in federal court in Sioux City.
Sander Cotoc, age 23, from Britt, Iowa, was convicted of one count of possessing child pornography.
At the plea hearing, Cotoc admitted that, on April 20, 2010, he possessed child pornography on his cell phone.
Sentencing before United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Cotoc remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Cotoc will be sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment. He faces a maximum fine of $250,000, a $100 special assessment, and supervised release for 5 years to life following his imprisonment.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, the Britt Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States 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.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 10-3050.|
