Texas - Federal Judge Sentences David Andrew Diehl (49) to Federal Prison for Producing Child Pornography

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced that in Austin, 49-year-old David Andrew Diehl was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for producing child pornography depicting sexual assaults of female children occurring while inside a camping tent as well as inside Diehl’s former Austin residence.

In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge Lee Yeakel also ordered that Diehl pay a $1,000 fine and a $1,000 special assessment. Judge Yeakel also ordered that Diehl be placed under supervised release for a period of five years after completing his prison term.

In February, Judge Yeakel convicted Diehl of ten counts of producing child pornography. Prior to trial, Diehl signed a stipulation of facts essentially admitting facts proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he sexually exploited three female children for the purpose of producing 13 child pornography videos which depict the children engaging in sexually explicit conduct. The stipulation revealed that between February 1999 and November 2000, Diehl recorded, created, and produced three video recordings while at the Star Ranch in McDade, Texas, in which Diehl used and directed an 11-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct. Diehl also produced 10 other video recordings of himself and the 8-year-old girl, and of himself and a 3-year old girl, who, at his direction, engaged in sexually explicit conduct inside his residence.

Diehl contended that he did not commit a federal crime because there was no interstate nexus as required for the federal charges. In his ruling, Judge Yeakel found sufficient evidence to establish interstate nexus beyond a reasonable doubt, noting that all of the sexually explicit videos in this case, created by the defendant, were discovered on computer hard drives by authorities conducting other criminal investigations in Mesa, Arizona; Westminster, Maryland, and other locations outside of Texas; and have been available on the Internet since 2007. Accordingly, having found interstate nexus proven, Judge Yeakel found Diehl guilty of all counts of production of child pornography.

The case was investigated by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Maine State Police. Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Devlin prosecuted the matter for the government.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/txw/press_releases/2011/Diehl_sen.pdf