HOUSTON—Edward Jorodge Gladney, 28, of Houston, has been sentenced to serve a total of 720 months in prison following his convictions for producing and advertising child pornography, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Kenneth Magidson announced today. The sentence represents one of the largest in the Southern District of Texas for offenses related to child pornography in recent years.
Gladney was charged with producing child pornography as far back as 2002, as well as advertising those images for sale via the Internet. He pleaded guilty March 5, 2012.
Today, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore handed Gladney the significant prison term after considering all the evidence against him, reports from mental health experts and statements of the victims, as well as the number of years he continually abused his victims. Judge Gilmore sentenced Gladney to 360 months on each of two production of child pornography convictions to run consecutively and 360 months on the remaining two production and one advertising convictions to run concurrent to each other and to the first two production counts for a total of 720 months in federal prison.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Gilmore stated she did not believe Gladney understood the magnitude of what he had done to the victims, noting that the thousands of images Gladney produced and placed on the Internet will remain there forever. Gladney was further ordered to pay a $12,500 fine, will be required to register as a sex offender, and will be on supervised release for the rest of his life following his release from prison.
The case was initiated following an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers advising of an adult male being indecent with young boys. The investigation revealed he manipulated four boys for the purposes of capturing their images and then advertising those images for sale on the Internet. The exploitation continued for years and allowed Gladney to create thousands of images and hundreds of videos of young children that were disseminated via the Internet. The images and videos included graphic depictions of boys in provocative positions and boys and adults engaging in oral and anal sex. Additionally, Gladney had collected thousands of images and videos containing children other than his personal victims, one of which included a forcible sexual assault of a young boy in which the screams of the child can be heard.
Gladney has remained in custody since his transfer from the Harris County, Texas jail, where he was held on related state charges. He will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons to be determined in the near future.
The charges are the result of an investigation conducted by members of the Innocent Images Unit of the FBI, including task force officers from Houston Police Department, which focuses its attention on investigating offenses involving the exploitation of children via the Internet.
This case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Zack, 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 the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”
