RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A North Carolina man accused of sharing videos that showed him sexually abusing a child will spend more than 24 years in prison as part of a plea deal, federal prosecutors said.
The U.S. Department of Justice said 30-year-old William Austin Strawn of Jacksonville was sentenced Wednesday in Raleigh by District Judge Terrence W. Boyle.
He pleaded guilty in January to a charge of production of child pornography.
Prosecutors said the FBI in November 2021 infiltrated a chat group on the Kik platform in which members shared and discussed original child porn videos, with a member known as “Craig Shellston” sending multiple videos showing him abusing a child.
The FBI believed a child was in danger so it obtained an emergency court order to trace that user’s IP address, which belonged to a home in Jacksonville where Strawn lived.
Prosecutors say Straw said in a statement that he was a member of the chat group, he received porn depicting children between the ages of 5 and 10 and admitted to committing sexual acts with the child with whom he had access. They also say he told them in phone conversations from jail about other people who produced child porn.
