Man Arrested in 2008 for Prostituting Minors Pleads Guilty to Transporting Child Pornography Interstate

LOS ANGELES—A Hayward, California, man who posted child pornography online to advertise the sexual services of a minor female, pleaded guilty last week to the transportation of child pornography, a charge which carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in federal prison, announced Thomas P. O’Brien, United States Attorney in Los Angeles, and Salvador Hernandez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Aaron Pierre Brown, 29, was arrested in August 2008 on charges including the sexual trafficking of children and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Agents who executed a search warrant at Brown’s home in September 2007 found evidence of the alleged prostitution operation, and a forensic examination of Brown’s computer taken during the search revealed several hundred sexually explicit images of minor girls. As part of the plea agreement, which was entered on April 27th, 2009, Brown admitted to one count charged in a superseding information of transporting pornographic images of a fifteen year old engaged in sexually explicit conduct, some of which he used in online Internet advertisements for the minor’s sexual services. Brown also acknowledged, as part of his plea agreement, that he was convicted in 2002 of having unlawful sex with a minor in a separate case.

Brown faces a statutory maximum penalty of 40 years imprisonment and a minimum mandatory sentence of fifteen years imprisonment when he is sentenced on September 15, 2009. Brown also faces lifetime supervised release and other terms imposed by the court, including registration as a sex offender.

The investigation of Brown was conducted by the FBI’s SAFE Team in Los Angeles (Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement), and is part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost Initiative. The SAFE Team is comprised of agents, officers and prosecutors from the following agencies: FBI, California Department of Justice-Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence, LAPD, CHP, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, United States Postal Inspection Service, The Department of Child and Family Services, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the United States Attorney’s Office.

Considerable assistance was provided by many agencies throughout California, including the Los Angeles Police Department’s Vice Division; the FBI in Sacramento, San Francisco and Arizona; the California Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation; the Sacramento Police Department; the Oakland Police Department; the Hayward Police Department and the Toledo Police Department.

This case was prosecuted by the United States Attorneys Office in Los Angeles.

The FBI’s Innocence Lost Initiative was developed in the Spring of 2003, when the FBI’S Violent Crime and Major Offenders Unit, in partnership with the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, increased efforts to address the growing problem of children forced into prostitution.

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