LUBBOCK, Texas — Robert Lawrence Noll, 40, of Brownwood, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to 121 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in April 2015 to one count of possession of prepubescent child pornography, announced John R. Parker, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Noll was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $27,500.
Noll, who had been on pretrial release, was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on September 18, 2015.
According to documents filed in the case, Noll used a laptop computer at his residence to search the Internet for images and videos of child pornography. In the course of searching for this material, Noll located, downloaded, and viewed numerous images and videos constituting child pornography, and some of those images involved prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Brown County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy prosecuted the case.
