CHICAGO—A man who had built a vast child pornography collection on his home computer was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison for possessing and transporting child pornography. The defendant, Andrew Modjewski, 25, was charged in 2010 in a three-count indictment after a search warrant executed on his residence revealed the presence of over 12,500 still images and 700 videos on Modjewski’s desktop computer and his external hard drive. Modjewski subsequently pleaded guilty to all three counts of the indictment.

Modjewski was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall, who also imposed a lifetime term of supervised release following his time in prison. He must serve at least 85 percent of his 15 year sentence before he is eligible for release, and there is no parole in the federal prison system. Transporting child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison. Possessing child pornography carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison with no mandatory minimum sentence.

According to court records, in November 2009, an undercover law enforcement officer working in New York engaged in a private online chat utilizing a screen name of one of Modjewski’s friends on a file sharing network used to trade child pornography. During the chat, Modjewski shared his files on the network with the undercover officer, and the officer downloaded 11 files depicting images or videos of child pornography. Investigation revealed that Modjewski had been actively trading and collecting child pornography since at least 2008.

“[Modjewski] not only collected thousands of child pornography images, he also distributed those images, knowing that the people whose appetite he fed could be dangerous pedophiles,” the government wrote in a sentencing memo. The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force. The task force is part of a nationwide effort known as the Innocence Lost National Initiative targeting those involved in the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the United States. In Chicago, the CETF is composed of FBI special agents and officers and investigators from the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

The sentence was announced today by Robert J. Shields, Jr., Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI, and Gary S. Shapiro, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Zimdahl.