Arlington Man Sentenced For Receiving Child Sexual Abuse Material

ARLINGTON, VA — An Arlington man was sentenced Thursday to nine years in federal prison for receiving child sexual abuse material, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Patrick Wanamaker, 35, viewed, downloaded and possessed images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, federal prosecutors said.

Federal authorities searched Wanamaker’s Arlington home on Oct. 1, 2025, and recovered nine electronic devices, eight of which belonged to him, according to court documents. Investigators identified 81 images of child sexual abuse material on his cellphone and laptop that had been downloaded between December 2015 and October 2023.

Hundreds Of Images, Videos Found Through Cloud Links

A forensic examination also found that Wanamaker had emailed himself links to material stored through Mega, an encrypted cloud storage and communications platform, prosecutors said.

The links contained 279 images and 777 videos depicting child sexual abuse, including the abuse of infants and toddlers, according to court documents. Investigators determined that Wanamaker accessed the links at various times between January 2022 and October 2023.

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Patch previously reported that the FBI began examining Wanamaker’s electronic devices after executing the October 2025 search warrant. Investigators found the Mega links in emails and in the Apple Notes application on his cellphone.

Wanamaker was arrested in January and later pleaded guilty March 25 to receiving child sexual abuse material. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force investigated the case.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Clement and former Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Minghella prosecuted the case.

The prosecution was brought under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative launched in 2006 to coordinate federal, state and local efforts to investigate online child exploitation, prosecute offenders and identify victims.

Court documents and other information are available through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and PACER under Case No. 1:26-cr-53.