Richard Vatilla, 44, of Cleveland, Tn., has been sentenced to serve 10 years in federal prison by Judge Curtis Collier on distribution of child pornography charges.
Vatilla pleaded guilty in June. Upon his release from prison, he will be subject to 10 years of supervised release by the U.S. Probation Office. Vatilla will also be required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
Vatilla admitted to downloading and trading child pornography, and making child pornography available for downloading through a peer to peer file sharing program. He also admitted that he went online to teen chat rooms, talked to people he believed to be juveniles, and asked them to send him pictures of themselves.
The indictment and subsequent conviction of Vatilla was the result of an investigation conducted by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Department of Homeland Security Investigations Division, and Bradley County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Terra L. Bay represented the United States.
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. Led by the United States Attorneys’ 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.