11 March
2006 Press Release. Department of Justice.
A Joshua Tree
resident pleaded guilty this afternoon to a federal charge of possession
of child pornography. Because the defendant has a prior conviction related
to the sexual assault of a minor, he is facing a mandatory minimum sentence
of 10 years in federal prison.
Gordon Douglas
Cope, 58, pleaded guilty to the single felony count in United States District
Court in Los Angeles. Under the PROTECT Act, which took effect in 2003,
Cope must be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, and he could be
sentenced to as much as 20 years for the offense.
This case began
when undercover FBI agents, posing online as people interested in child
pornography, visited Internet chat rooms that Cope had established. The
chat rooms were used to trade and publish images of child pornography.
During the course of the investigation, FBI agents seized Cope's computers
and found hundreds of still images and 20 videos depicting the sexual abuse
of minors, some of whom were less than 5 years old.
According to a
plea agreement filed in this case, Cope knew that the images and videos
were pornographic and knew that they depicted children under 12 years of
age. Of the 670 images and 20 videos of child pornography, law enforcement
has positively identified 83 images and two videos as depicting known child
victims of sexual assault.
Cope pleaded guilty
before United States District Judge George P. Schiavelli, who is scheduled
to sentence the defendant on July 10.
This case is the
result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Palm
Springs Resident Office), which received the assistance of the Baltimore
FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
CONTACT: Assistant
United States Attorney Thomas E. Loeser
Cyber and Intellectual
Property Crimes Section
(213) 894-0500