An Alabama man will spend nine years behind bars for possessing child pornography in his Mississippi home.
Court documents reveal that Walton Stephen Vaughan, 67, was in possession of hundreds of visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct when FBI agents and local law enforcement personnel executed a search warrant at his residence in Lucedale.
Vaughan was indicted by a federal grand jury and pled guilty on February 23. He is sentenced to nine years in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release.
In addition to his term of imprisonment, Vaughan is ordered to pay restitution to victims totaling $29,500, and a $3,000 assessment under the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018. He is also ordered to register as a sex offender.
The case was investigated by the FBI in Mobile, Ala. with assistance from the FBI in Mississippi. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as 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 the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.
