BOSTON - An Acton man was sentenced today to five and half years in prison on child pornography charges.
Chris Allen Oake, 61, of Acton and more recently Lowell, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to 64 months in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release. On Feb. 16, 2012, Oake pleaded guilty to transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography. He has been in custody since the plea of guilty.
Oake was an active member of a private, members-only website that was largely dedicated to child pornography and child erotica. Thousands of images of child pornography and child erotica were found in well-organized folders on computer media seized from Oake. The charges against Oake were a result of “Operation Nest Egg,” an ongoing and joint investigation led by the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Operation Nest Egg, launched in 2008, targeted approximately 500 individuals located throughout the world for their involvement in an online group dedicated to trading images of child pornography.
United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz; Bruce Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of ICE-Homeland Security Investigations; Colonel Marian McGovern, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; and Chief Francis J. Widmayer, III of the Acton Police Department made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Yoon of Ortiz’s Major Crimes Unit and Trial Attorney Bonnie Kane of the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation & Obscenity Section.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In 2006, the Department of Justice created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys' Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.
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