FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – Fresno County’s Sheriff visits Sacramento Tuesday as law enforcement works together to bring to justice the worst offenders who exploit children.
A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Tuesday announces that a 57 year-old Sacramento man is sentenced to life in prison for crimes including buying children and producing child porn. Michael Carey Clemans is just one of a number of offenders, in a multi-year trend across California that has law enforcement joining forces to stop it.
Fighting child exploitation crimes is the reason that Fresno’s Sheriff Margaret Mims traveled to Sacramento on Tuesday, January 23rd, says her spokesperson Tony Botti.
“The Attorney General’s Office invited Sheriff Mims and our sergeant who heads up or ICAC Teams: Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, he wanted them to be there with him today just to show that unity – how we work on cases throughout the year to have good outcomes, like the one that they announced today.” -Tony Botti, Fresno County Sheriff’s Spokesperson.
Botti provided this information about the ICAC Task Force:
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency for the Central California Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) Task Force. It is comprised of 60 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies spread throughout nine counties in the Central Valley. It is dedicated to protecting children online and investigating crimes committed against children, which are facilitated by the Internet and computer usage. To learn more, please visit the ICAC website at www.centralcaliforniaicac.org
The US Attorney has prosecuted over 40 federal defendants in the last four years, from Neng Yang, (below) who produced child porn while working as a Clovis teacher, back in 2014, to Shane Paul Young, who was busted in Fresno in 2016 for sharing graphic images of infants and toddlers.
“This is the type of stuff that our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force deals with on a regular basis.” -Tony Botti, Fresno County Sheriff’s Spokesperson.
Sheriff Mims is working with Project Safe Childhood and the DOJ to fight the growing epidemic.
Click here for more information about Project Safe Childhood.
Click below to listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
Project Safe Childhood cases with Central Valley Offenders (Jan 2014 to present, sentences 25+ years):
On April 30, 2014, Neng Yang, 49, of Clovis, was sentenced to 38 years in prison for producing child pornography. While working as a teacher, Yang used an iPhone and a computer to record and store videos depicting his sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl under his supervisory control.
On August 25, 2014, Christopher David Robinette, 48, a U.S. citizen living in the Netherlands, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for traveling to Fresno to sexually exploit a minor. He abused the minor in California, Nevada, Mexico and Costa Rica and produced digital still and video images of the abuse.
On April 12, 2016, Shane Paul Young, 47, of Fresno, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sending and receiving hundreds of videos and images of child pornography with users across Europe and North America. The voluminous amount of child pornography included graphic images of infants and toddlers being sexually abused. Both the nature of Young’s offense and his significant prior criminal history factored into his sentence.
On December 3, 2014, Jeffrey Randall Metcalfe, 50, of Turlock, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for receiving and distributing child pornography. He created at least 17 accounts on a photo-sharing website, posted numerous images to the site and made comments about his interest in child pornography. Metcalfe possessed thousands of printed and digital images of child pornography. This was his second child pornography conviction in federal court in Fresno.
On December 8, 2014, Bradley Allen Vaine, 31, of Fresno, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for receiving and distributing more than 600 images of child pornography, some of which depicted prepubescent minors, and some were of violent or sadistic conduct.
On March 24, 2014, Frank Charles Reddell, 43, of Madera, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for receiving child pornography. Reddell had a prior conviction for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor, and he was on parole when an officer found him viewing child pornography in a parking lot.
On July 20, 2015, Ricky Davis, 38, of Modesto, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for production of child pornography and attempted sex trafficking of a minor. He took sexually explicit photographs of a 13-year-old girl and posted them online within an advertisement for prostitution.
