Lexington Man Sentenced for Child Porn

George Randall Ward, 60, of Lexington has been been sentenced to 20 years in prison for distribution of child pornography, according to Ed Tarver, U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

Ward was sentenced Wednesday in Augusta, Ga., by U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall. Upon completing the sentence, Ward must register as a sex offender and will face a lifetime of supervised release.

The evidence at Ward’s guilty plea and sentencing hearings showed that Ward used a file-sharing network to distribute over 700 images of child pornography to others over the Internet. He also engaged in online “chats” with an undercover officer in an effort to trade child pornography and arrange to meet a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity, Tarver said.

Ward was arrested on Sept. 28, 2011, after he arrived at a pre-arranged location with the intent to engage in sex with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, but in fact was an undercover law enforcement officer. He pled guilty on February 14, 2012, Tarver said.

The joint investigation that led to the charge was undertaken by the Richmond County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Columbia County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office, agencies making up the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Child Exploitation Task Force.