A Martinez man will spend more than 14 years in prison for possessing images of child sexual abuse.
Bradley Fearneyhough, 35, was sentenced to 172 months in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Jill Steinberg said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall sentenced Fearneyhough and ordered him to pay $21,000 in restitution to victims and register as a sex offender. His prison term — there is no parole in the federal system — will be followed by 20 years of supervised release.
“Predators who possess images of child sexual exploitation perpetuate the victimization of these vulnerable children,” Steinberg said. “This sentence makes it clear that such despicable activity won’t be tolerated in our communities.”
Court documents and testimony showed in May 2022, the FBI received an online tip that Fearneyhough possessed images of child sexual abuse. Agents found hundreds of images of child pornography on multiple devices, including videos depicting sexual abuse of children as young as infants.
In his arrest last year by Columbia County law enforcement, Fearneyhough was accused of having 500 to 1,000 videos of young girls being abused by adult men, which he shared on Telegram from his Hillside Court home.
Anyone with information on suspected child sexual exploitation can contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678, or https://report.cybertip.org/.
The case was investigated by the FBI, and prosecuted for the United States by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara M. Lyons.
