An Eagle River man was sentenced to a high-end guideline sentence of 78 months imprisonment followed by lifetime supervised release by Judge Timothy M. Burgess on Tuesday, March 28.
John Daniel Brooks had previously pleaded guilty to one count of Distribution and Receipt of Child Pornography.
In September of 2021, the State of Alaska contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Anchorage to report that a state employee was suspected of possessing images depicting child sexual exploitation. Two days later, the FBI conducted a search warrant at Brooks’ residence, where he worked for the state of Alaska remotely as an analyst programmer.
The FBI discovered that Brooks had installed an internal hard drive in his State of Alaska computer that was found to contain over 1.2 million images of suspected child exploitation. Those images included depictions of infants and toddlers being tortured and sexually assaulted by adults.
All told, Brooks’ collection of child exploitation materials was one of the largest encountered to date by the FBI in Alaska.
“Large scale consumers of child sexual abuse materials like Mr. Brooks directly contribute to the exploitation of children worldwide,” said U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker, District of Alaska. “The sentence imposed by the court reflects the seriousness of this type of abhorrent behavior and we will continue to prosecute these cases to the fullest extent of the law. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI and APD, in coordination with our State partners, Mr. Brooks has been brought to justice.”
“Our investigation revealed Mr. Brooks acquired and possessed one of the largest collections of child sexual abuse materials found in Alaska,” said Special Agent in Charge Antony Jung of the FBI Anchorage Field Office. “Possession of this material is not a victimless crime, and the FBI will use every legal authority we have to root out predators to protect children from these unconscionable offenses.”
The United States Attorney’s Office thanks the State of Alaska. The FBI Anchorage Field Office and the Anchorage Police Department investigated this case as part of the FBI’s Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Task Force.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices nationwide 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 exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit projectsafechildhood.gov.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Alexander is prosecuting the case.