TEXARKANA, Texas–A Texarkana man who had access to young children before his arrest by local authorities last year, is accused in a federal indictment of four counts of production of child pornography and a single count of distribution of child pornography.
Caleb Layne Crawford, 25, was arrested Dec. 27 on state charges related to child sex abuse material and has been held in the Bowie County jail. Crawford is now facing a federal indictment that alleges he sexually exploited a child under the age of 12 to produce images of child sexual abuse from Dec. 9 to Dec. 16 and that he distributed images on Dec. 11.
Investigators with the Texarkana Texas Police Dept. received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in December regarding images of child sex abuse that they traced to Crawford. Some of the disturbing images were of a young girl being sexually abused and appeared to be “homemade,” according to a probable cause affidavit.
Crawford allegedly had access to a 5-year-old relative and three young children of similar ages whose mother Crawford had been dating, the affidavit said, noting that those children are of similar age to the child depicted in the “homemade” abuse material.
At the state level, Crawford was charged in connection with the allegedly “homemade” images as well as for a cache of other images identified as child sexual abuse material.
Crawford faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison on each of the four counts of production of child pornography, if convicted. If found guilty of distribution of child pornography, Crawford faces five to 20 years.
Crawford has not yet appeared in federal court on the indictment. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder III and referred to U.S. Magistrate Judge James Boone Baxter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Richards is representing the government. No attorney of record was listed in the federal case for Crawford on Monday.
