A former McDonough truck driver who pleaded guilty Tuesday to distributing thousands of images of child pornography could face up to 20 years in prison, authorities said.
Stanley Joseph Weaver, 60, who now lives in Butts County, will be sentenced in early January on two counts of child pornography. He faces a minimum of five years behind bars, a $250,000 fine, at least five years of supervised release and registering as a sex offender, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia spokeswoman Melissa Hodges said Friday in a news release.
Weaver was taken into custody in January after he sent child pornography to undercover FBI agents on multiple occasions, Hodges said. During two interactions with agents, he shared 342,756 files, which accumulated to about 524.8 gigabytes, of child porn involving “prepubescent minors, sadomasochism, infants and toddlers,” she added. During two other interactions with a foreign law enforcement agency, 54 images and six videos of child pornography were shared, Hodges said.
“Stanley Weaver distributed hundreds of thousands of images of child pornography, fully immersed in an online world which feeds off the pain and suffering of innocent children,” acting U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will hold Weaver, and other child predators, accountable for their criminal roles exploiting and victimizing children.”
The case against Weaver was brought as part of “Project Safe Childhood,” which is the Department of Justice’s nationwide initiative to combat the increase in child sexual exploitation and abuse. It organizes federal, state and local resources to identify and rescue victims and locate, apprehend and prosecute those who exploit children.
“A child is victimized every single time pornographic images of that child are shared, and in this case, it was hundreds of thousands of times,” said Chris Hacker, special agent of FBI Atlanta. “That’s why the FBI makes it a high priority to remove predators like Weaver from our everyday society, unable to inflict any more pain and suffering on innocent children.”
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