Two years after his release from federal prison, a Cherokee County man who served a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography has again pleaded guilty to the same charge.
Jonathan Blane Allred, 49, of Waleska, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography Thursday, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Kurt R. Erskine said in a news release. Allred’s guilty plea comes a little more than two years after he was released from federal prison in August 2019. He was previously convicted on the same charge in March 2010, according to federal court records.
Allred was arrested in June after he was accused of using his email and Dropbox account to download hundreds of sexually explicit pictures and videos of children from the internet, Erskine said. Some of the children in the exploitative content were as young as 6 years old.
The investigation began when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a tip that a Dropbox account had been used to upload six files that were considered exploitative, Erskine said. NCMEC shared the tip with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office which executed search warrants for online accounts that were later connected to Allred.
“Clearly, Allred has not gotten the message that this behavior will not be tolerated and that HSI and its law enforcement partners will continue to hold him accountable for actions,” Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Katrina W. Berger said in a press statement.
“It is particularly disturbing when a defendant who has already served a significant federal sentence for possession of child pornography returns to society only to again engage in this kind of violation of children,” Erskine said.
Allred will be sentenced on Mar. 24, 2022. In addition to a new prison sentence, Allred may have his supervised release from his first sentence revoked.
About the Author
