Child Pornography Case Leads To 18-Year Sentence For McLean Man

MCLEAN, VA — A McLean man was sentenced to 18 years in prison Friday in a child pornography case.

Zackary Ellis Sanders, 27, was convicted in federal court on five counts of production of child pornography, six counts of receipt of child pornography, and one count of possession of child pornography in October 2021. Prosecutors say Sanders had sexually explicit conversations with at least six minors from 2017 to 2020.

According to federal prosecutors, Sanders had a concessions business providing services to local schools but met minors on mobile apps and an online forum. Hundreds of messages were exchanged with minors, instructing them to conduct sexually explicit content and self-harming content, prosecutors say. Sanders told the minors to record themselves and send the videos to him, court documents indicate.

Prosecutors claim Sanders discussed meeting the minors and conducting sexual acts with them. Sanders also threatened to distribute a video of one minor to others at the minor's high school if the minor did not follow his instructions, court documents claim.

Evidence recovered from laptops and thumb drives in Sanders's bedrooms showed images and videos of sexual abuse of other children. The videos included the sexual abuse of a toddler and prepubescent children being sexually abused and subjected to sadistic acts. Sanders told law enforcement the images were from dark web sites.

Along with serving 18 years in prison, Sanders will have a lifetime of supervised release.