Baltimore lawyer pleads guilty to distributing child pornography

David Bart Goldstein, a Baltimore lawyer, has pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III; and Baltimore City State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein.

According to Goldstein's plea agreement, on June 25, 2010, an undercover FBI agent in Newark, New Jersey, launched a publicly available file sharing program, and saw that Goldstein was logged in and was sharing approximately 1,476 files. The undercover agent downloaded 22 images and six videos from Goldstein's shared files. All of the downloaded images contained visual depictions of actual minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Further investigation revealed that in May 2010, Goldstein had paid $29.95 for access to the file sharing program.

As part of his plea agreement, Goldstein must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

Goldstein faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by up to lifetime of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander, has scheduled sentencing for July 27, 2011 at 11:00 a.m.

This case was brought as 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 United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland's program are available at www.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, Baltimore Police Department and Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul E. Budlow and Bonnie S. Greenberg, who prosecuted the case.