LUBBOCK, Texas — Kevin Ismael Lopez, 25, of Lubbock, Texas, was sentenced Friday, March 9, 2018 by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to 327 months in federal prison and 20 years of supervised release, following his guilty plea in November 2017 to two counts of production of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas.

Lopez has been in custody since his arrest in August 2017 on a related criminal complaint.

According to the plea agreement factual resume, on December 14, 2016, Lopez used his mother’s cellular telephone, to record a video of Lopez engaging in sexual conduct with a prepubescent minor female as she slept at his Lubbock, Texas residence.

            On January 24, 2017, at the same residence, Lopez used another cellular phone, to record a video of Lopez engaging in sexual conduct with another prepubescent minor as she slept. Lopez also made a sexually explicit video recording of the girl. After creating this video recording, Lopez used the Internet to transport the video to his Dropbox account, which he used for online storage of some of his videos and images.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood leverages federal, state and local resources to better investigate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children.  Project Safe Childhood also prioritizes identifying and rescuing victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/.  For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Haag prosecuted.