PITTSBURGH, PA — A resident of Irwin, Pennsylvania, 30-year-old Thomas Wesley Crosby IV, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. The sentencing followed his violation of conditions imposed during his federal supervised release from two prior convictions related to the illegal possession of child sexual abuse material.
United States District Judge Christy C. Weigand handed down the sentence on March 11, 2024. United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan made the announcement the following day.
The court heard how Crosby, while serving in the United States Air Force and living in New Mexico in 2018, had his residence searched under a federal warrant. The search uncovered child sexual abuse material on his computer, tablet, cellphone, and thumb drives. Following a less than honorable discharge, Crosby returned to Western Pennsylvania. A subsequent search of a cellphone recovered in October 2020 revealed an even greater number of child pornography videos than those found during the New Mexico search.
Crosby was indicted based on the seizures in both New Mexico and Pennsylvania, and he pleaded guilty to federal charges of possessing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. His sentence in New Mexico was time served, followed by 15 years of supervised release.
Upon returning to Western Pennsylvania to serve his term of supervised release, monitoring software indicated that Crosby was viewing computer-generated and anime-type images of infant females engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
During his hearing before Judge Weigand, Crosby did not contest the allegation that he had once again possessed and viewed illegal sexual images of children. Judge Weigand declared that a sentence above the discretionary four-to-ten-month sentencing guidelines range was justified in this instance. Alongside the 15 months of incarceration, she also imposed another ten-year period of supervision and banned Crosby from using computers, a cellphone, or the internet for 60 days following his release from federal prison.
Assistant United States Attorney Ross E. Lenhardt represented the United States in this supervised release revocation proceeding. United States Attorney Olshan lauded the United States Probation Office for their exceptional work on this matter.
For the latest news on everything happening in Chester County and the surrounding area, be sure to follow MyChesCo on Google News and MSN.