ABQ man sentenced to 120 years for child porn
Images of 2-year-old victims were emailed
Michael Dameon Blackburn, 31, of Albuquerque was sentenced to 120 years in prison Thursday for his conviction for producing, distributing, receiving and possessing child pornography depicting two 2-year-olds.
U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson also sentenced him to a lifetime of supervised release should he ever get out, and ordered him to register as a sex offender. Blackburn has to pay $430,800 in restitution to the two children who were victims of his conduct, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Acting U.S. Attorney James Tierney said, “While there are never any winners in these cases, we hope that the knowledge that Blackburn will spend the rest of his life in prison where he can never harm them or any other child will bring a measure of solace to the two young children he so terribly exploited.”
Homeland Security Investigations special agents arrested Blackburn in December of 2013 on a criminal complaint charging him with producing and distributing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct in Bernalillo County. A federal grand jury indicted him the next month.
HSI in Albuquerque received information from the HSI Cyber Crimes Center about a pornographic image of a child victim who might be in the Albuquerque area, according to the criminal complaint. HSI’s investigative efforts identified a residence in northeast Albuquerque as a possible location for the person who may have distributed the pornographic image.
Law enforcement officers made contact with Blackburn and two children – a girl and a boy, both two years of age – who were left in Blackburn’s care while their parents were out of town, according to court records and the complaint.
The officers learned that Blackburn had been sexually molesting the toddlers and taking photographs and making videos while he molested them. They also learned that Blackburn emailed images and videos of the toddlers to others.
Blackburn pleaded guilty in March of last year to all five counts of the indictment.
This case was also investigated by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and the Albuquerque Police Department, all members of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.