An Alabama man was sentenced today to 10 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for producing child pornography between 1997 and 1998, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town of the Northern District of Alabama.

Charles Mark McCormack, 54, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, pleaded guilty on Nov. 27, 2017, to one count of production of child pornography before Chief U.S. District Judge Karon O. Bowdre of the Northern District of Alabama.

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, between Aug. 1, 1997, and Oct. 15, 1998, McCormack used an approximately six-year-old girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of the conduct, by videotaping the girl urinating in a bathroom in his Colbert County, Alabama residence. During a May 2016 search of McCormack’s residence, law enforcement discovered images of nude and topless females believed to constitute child pornography and a suitcase containing young girls’ panties. McCormack was employed as a kindergarten teacher at the time of the search.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations is investigating this case with support from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Trial Attorney William M. Grady of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Chinelo Dike-Minor of the Northern District of Alabama are prosecuting the case.

This investigation is a part of Project Safe Childhood, 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 CEOS, Project Safe Childhood 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 Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.