Office of the Attorney General
Louisville Man Indicted after Sending Child Pornography to Attorney General's Office

Attorney General Jack Conway and David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, jointly announced today that a Louisville man has been indicted by federal grand jury on charges he possessed and transmitted child pornographic images.

A federal grand jury in Louisville indicted Anthony Edwards on Tuesday, June 7, 2011. The indictment was unsealed on June 9 after Edwards was taken into custody and follows an investigation by General Conway's Cybercrimes Unit.

Edwards is accused of sending an email message from United Kentucky Liberation Front to the Kentucky Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection on August 6, 2010. The email included 12 attached image files. The same message was addressed to 32 separate email addresses, including the political action committees of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, U.S. Representatives John Boehner and Ron Paul, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and the Governor of the state of Mississippi.

According to an affidavit in support of a Kentucky state search warrant by an investigator with General Conway's Cybercrimes Unit, seven of the attached images included matter portraying the sexual performance by a minor. Five of the images depicted adult pornography.

If convicted, Edwards faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. He faces maximum potential penalties of 30 years in prison, a $500,000 fine and supervised release of at least five years and it could be any term of years including life.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jo E. Lawless. Edwards was scheduled to appear for arraignment and a detention hearing today in United States District Court in Louisville.

Since its creation in June 2008, General Conway's Cybercrimes Unit, a member of the Internet Crimes against Children Task Force, has launched more than 200 investigations and seized more than 200,000 child pornographic images and videos from the Internet.

A charge is merely an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.