From the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore:
U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander sentenced Brian Matthew Williams, age 28, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, today to 10 years in prison followed by 50 years of supervised release for receipt of child pornography.
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Colonel Marcus L. Brown, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; Cecil County State’s Attorney Edward D. E. Rollins, III; Harford County State’s Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly; and United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Zane D. Memeger.
“This defendant egregiously violated the privacy of young boys by secretly recording them in public restrooms, a crime that gives every parent nightmares,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “I am grateful to the vigilant citizen who noticed the unusual behavior and immediately called 9-1-1, and to the police and prosecutors who conducted an urgent investigation.”
According to his plea agreement, on May 6, 2012, Williams spent nearly five hours at the Maryland House and Chesapeake House rest stops on I-95, walking in and out of the men’s restrooms filming several minor males, most of whom were prepubescent, as they used the urinals. Williams positioned himself at an adjacent urinal and used his cell phone to create 21 videos. Williams would then leave the restroom and capture full length images of the young boys as they walked out, including their faces. After the parents of one of the victims reported Williams’ suspicious behavior to Maryland State Police, he was arrested, charged in Cecil County and released on bond the same day.
On June 13, 2012, a search warrant was executed at Williams’ residence and computers and other digital media were seized. A number of hard drives appeared to have been removed, and the operating system on the remaining hard drive had been reinstalled on May 28, 2012.
A subsequent background investigation of Williams revealed that he had been questioned by law enforcement on two previous occasions under similar circumstances. In 2007, law enforcement contacted Williams after they received several complaints that he had followed minors into the restroom at a college basketball game. In June 2010, Williams was questioned and released after an off-duty police officer saw him in the restroom of a movie theater pointing his cell phone at the genitals of young boys using the urinals.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the “resources” tab on the left of the page.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, Maryland State Police, Cecil County State’s Attorney’s Office, Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson T. Mihok, who prosecuted the case.
I remember the good ol days, when the only thing you had to worry about at the maryland house was not to use the stall that had a glory hole in it.