GALVESTON, TX – Leonard Dee Hawthorne, 52, of Texas City, Texas, will be serving 12½ years in federal prison, without parole, for a federal child pornography conviction. Hawthorn, who was employed as an Exxon Supervisor, was sentenced today by Galveston U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent to 151 months, which will be followed by a life term of supervised release where he will be monitored by a U.S. Probation Officer and will be prohibited from Internet and/or computer use and from working, living or congregating near children under the age 18 and must register as a sex offender. Judge Kent also imposed a $50,000 fine.

Hawthorne, who has been on bond since his arrest by FBI agents on January 18, 2006, was taken into federal custody to begin his sentence. Hawthorne’s arrest followed the filling of a criminal indictment that alleged Hawthorne, using a computer and the Internet on January 17, 2004, paid for a subscription to a website that contained images of children, some under the age of 12 years, with whom adults were engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The indictment was filed after a March 2, 2005, search of Hawthorne’s home resulted in the seizure of his home computers and computer disks found to contain more than 4,000 images of child pornography, organized into file folders by content. Hawthorne was also found in possession of printed images of child pornography as well as a number of computer disks at his Texas City home.

In assessing a sentence, Judge Kent noted that a number of the images received and possessed by Hawthorne showed toddlers and younger children being sexually abused by adults. He noted that many of these abused children are “train wrecks” whose lives have been ruined by the abuse that continues each time the images are downloaded and possessed by people like Hawthorne. In noting that the defendant is a supervisor at Exxon Mobile, he admonished Hawthorne that his conduct subsidized and made possible the degradation of children.

The charges are the result of an investigation conducted by the Texas City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Martha Minnis.