Anthony Michael Mileo, a former Corporal with the Maryland National Capital Park Police Department and ex-K9 handler, charged with possessing child pornography, pleaded guilty Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.
If the court accepts the former police officer’s plea, he will be sentenced to between 48 and 78 months imprisonment during the sentencing scheduled for February 17, 2021, by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, a DOJ press release stated. (REPORT: Anti-Alcohol Pastor Arrested On Child Pornography Charges)
— US Attorney Maryland (@USAO_MD) December 21, 2020
Mileo of Huntington, Maryland, was arrested on Nov. 7, 2019, according to CBS Baltimore. Two months after his arrest, on Jan. 28, 2020, a federal grand jury indicted him on the federal charge of transporting child pornography.
Three months before his arrest, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) had sent a cyber tip to the Maryland State Police after being alerted that videos documenting child sexual abuse were uploaded to a storage app account, according to the DOJ press release.
Following the tip, investigators, with the app’s administrators’ co-operation, discovered that the suspicious account’s uploaded videos included numerous video files portraying child sexual abuse, and the IP address linked to that account, the DOJ stated.
After Maryland State Police, in September 2019, obtained a search warrant for his emails, they found “71 video files depicting child sexual abuse, including prepubescent minors and images depicting children in bondage being sexually abused,” the DOJ explained. The videos depicted some known victims of child abuse that NCMEC helped identify, the release added.
“This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse,” the DOJ stated. “Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.”