LAFOLLETTE, Tenn. — A federal judge sentenced a LaFollette man to more than eight years behind bars for distributing child pornography on social media.
The investigation into Timothy Wayne Turben, 40, began when a social media company notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Turben's account was used to send child pornography, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
In October 2018, the FBI executed a federal search warrant and seized computer devices containing 75 digital videos and over a thousand images of child pornography from Turben’s residence. He confessed that he had sent child pornography to others with his social media account.
On February 18, 2021, Timothy Wayne Turben, 40, of LaFollette, Tennessee, was sentenced by the Honorable R. Leon Jordan, U.S. District Judge, to serve 97 months in federal prison for knowingly distributing child pornography in interstate commerce.
The judge sentenced Turben to 97 months in federal prison, followed by five years of probation. He was also be required to register as a sex offender.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about PSC, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
