A 28-year-old Petersburg man was sentenced in December in federal court to the mandatory minimum sentence of five years in jail for transporting child pornography. He also awaits sentencing on a state charge for heroin.
Marvin Mitchell Jackson was sentenced December 20th by U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess in Juneau after pleading guilty to one charge of transporting child porn.
The federal case came about after Jackson was arrested January 18th at Petersburg’s airport. He arrived on the morning flight from Seattle and local police stopped him at the airport. Officers found 22 grams of heroin inside a shampoo bottle along with hypodermic needles in his baggage. They also seized his cell phone and found images of child pornography. Initially he only faced state drug charges and he was released on $5,000 bail later in January.
Federal agents and local police executed a search warrant at Jackson’s Lumber Street home on May 12th. During that search officers found hundreds of images of young children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Jackson had combined photos of himself with the images of children. He also included text on the images stating his fantasies of sexual abuse. Jackson was indicted on the federal charges on June 21st and arrested again on June 24th.
Jackson signed a plea agreement on the federal charges and agreed to a guilty plea for transporting child porn. For that he received a five-year prison sentence from Judge Burgess along with a 30-year-term of supervised release.
The U.S. attorney’s office says the prosecution is part of a nationwide initiative started in May of 2006 called Project Safe Childhood, designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
Earlier in December Jackson pleaded guilty to second degree misconduct involving a controlled substance in the state case. He is scheduled for sentencing in that case February 28th before Superior court Judge William Carey.
