JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Clay County man convicted of sexually exploiting an infant and toddler to produce child pornography at his Middleburg home was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in federal prison, according to the Department of Justice.
Software engineer Andrew Leslie, 23, who pleaded guilty in October to federal sexual abuse and child pornography charges, was also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release once his prison sentence is complete.
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Acting Assistant Attorney General John Cronan said Leslie "committed unspeakable crimes against the most vulnerable of victims, children so young that they literally cannot speak for themselves," adding the sentence guarantees that Leslie will "never harm another child."
Leslie has been in custody since his arrest in October 2016. That's after federal agents found images showing Leslie abusing the two children on a digital camera at his bedside during a raid of his home.
Other digital devices seized during the raid revealed that Leslie was sharing and distributing images and video of the child pornography he produced, according to his plea agreement.
It was then too that agents also rescued the two-year-old child, with whom Leslie acknowledged he had been in bed when investigators entered the home.
This case marks yet another brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Justice Department aimed at cracking down on the abuse and sexual exploitation of children. To learn more, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.