Muscle Shoals man pleads guilty to producing child pornography

From The Trussville Tribune staff reports

BIRMINGHAM – A Colbert County man pleaded guilty Monday to producing child pornography between 1997 and 1998, announced U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town, Principle Deputy Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Ray Parmer in a release.

Charles Mark McCormack, 54, of Muscle Shoals, pleaded guilty to one count of production of child pornography before Chief U.S. District Court Judge Karon O. Bowdre. Sentencing is set for April 3 in Huntsville.

“It is incredibly disturbing that this kindergarten teacher was engaged in the production of child pornography,” Town said. “I thank the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and HSI agents who worked with federal prosecutors for their quick efforts which prevented more innocent victims from suffering at the hands of McCormack. The Bureau of Prisons has bed space reserved for people like him.”

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, between Aug. 1, 1997, and Oct. 15, 1998, McCormack used a minor, born in 1992, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of the conduct, by videotaping the minor urinating in a bathroom in his Colbert County home.

During a May 2016 search of McCormack’s residence, law enforcement also discovered fewer than 25 images of nude and topless females believed to constitute child pornography and a suitcase containing young girls’ panties.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s HSI is investigating this case with the cooperation of the GBI. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel J. Fortune of the Northern District of Alabama and Department of Justice Trial Attorney William M. Grady of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section are prosecuting the case.

This investigation is a part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, 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 www.justice.gov/psc.