Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Northern District of Texas

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Balch Springs Man Sentenced to 35 Years in Federal Prison for Producing Child Pornography

DALLAS—Francisco Javier Lopez Echeverria, 19, of Balch Springs, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay to serve 420 months in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release, following his guilty plea to two child pornography offenses, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

Echeverria has been in custody since his arrest in August 2016. He pleaded guilty in December 2016 to two counts of production of child pornography.

According to the factual resume filed in the case, on August 20, 2016, DPD executed a search warrant at Echeverria’s residence. Echeverria was at the residence along with a male 17-month-old child, John Doe. Echeverria acknowledged he possessed sexual explicit images of John Doe, who lived at the residence. Echeverria uploaded images and videos of child pornography to his Flickr account that he produced of John Doe. There are several videos and images that show Echeverria sexually abused the minor child on multiple occasions in May 2016 through July 2016.

In addition, the forensic review of Echeverria’s devices showed that Echeverria possessed additional child pornography. Currently six image files of Echeverria’s collection were of identified children known to law enforcement as victims of sexual abuse. Also, Echeverria possessed hundreds of additional images of nude toddlers and some nude infants.

These cases were brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shane Read prosecuted the case.

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