Politics & Government
Local Man Pleads Guilty to Transporting Child Pornography
Case part of a federal investigation; images transported via a members-only internet group.
A Silver Spring man has pleaded guilty to charges of transporting child pornography and destruction of records. Terry Lee Nolley, age 47, entered the plea agreement Tuesday in U.S. District Court-Maryland in Greenbelt.
According to the plea, Nolley and others conspired to operate “Country Lounge,” a web-based "bulletin board" used to trade child pornography images. The site reportedly operated from December 2006 through August, 2008.
Set up as a members-only group, "Country Lounge" could be joined only by the invitation and approval by the group’s administrators. The group had 142 members as of August, 2008, according to court documents, and Nolley was a web host of the group until July, 2008.
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For his role as "County Lounge" host, Nolley was charged with conspiring to transport child pornography through servers. The servers were reportedly located in Virginia but maintained by him from Silver Spring. After July 2008, he transferred the web-hosting responsibilities to others involved, but continued to trade child pornography images.
The web operation was seized by law enforcement authorities in October, 2008. In 2009, federal agents agents executed a search warrant at Nolley’s home and recovered several (unspecified) electronic devices. Prior to the search, Nolley later admitted that he had disposed of four hard drives, believed to contain child pornography, by throwing them into woods at the side of a road.
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Nolley faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five, to a maximum of 20 years in prison for transportation of child pornography; followed by up to lifetime of supervised release. He also faces a maximum of 20 years for destruction of records in a federal investigation. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. has scheduled sentencing for January, 2011.
As part of his plea agreement, Nolley must register as a sex offender where he resides, is employed and is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and other federal officials. The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative of the Department of Justice to combat the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.
