The United States Attorney, Jan Sharp, announced that  54-year-old John Dethlefs, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced today in federal court. He was sentenced on the charges of receipt of child pornography.  United States District Judge, Brian C. Buescher, sentenced Dethlefs to 96 months of imprisonment. 

There is no parole in the federal system.  After completing his term of imprisonment, Dethlefs will begin a 10-year term of supervised release, he was also ordered to pay $12,000 in restitution and a $5,000 special assessment. 

On February 24th, 2019, Dethlefs uploaded an image of child pornography to Microsoft Bing’s search function.  Dethlefs was trying to locate child pornography on the internet. 

On August 13th, 2019, officers executed a search warrant at Dethlefs’s Omaha residence. They obtained his computer which contained about 1,900 images of child pornography.  The child pornography included children ages 2 to 16-years-old and five of the images contained extreme explicit actions towards the children such as bondage and bestiality.  Dethlefs admitted to possessing child pornography. 

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. 

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case was investigated by the Omaha Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.