Child pornography crimes have exploded online, but victim compensation lags behind

Under federal law, producers of child pornography must pay a minimum of $3,000 in restitution to each of their victims.  

That would seem stricter than the restitution rules for child sex trafficking, which also mandates compensation to victims but does not include a minimum amount. In reality, the problems that prevent child sex trafficking victims from receiving restitution also persist in child pornography cases. 

A Dallas Morning News investigation found that from 2015 to 2024 restitution was ordered in 37% percent of federal child pornography production cases nationwide. In the Northern District of Texas, which includes Dallas, 13% of child pornography production cases during that time included a restitution order for victims.

By comparison, The News’ analysis of data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission found from 2015 to 2024 that 21% of federal child sex trafficking cases nationwide resulted in an order of restitution — and only 6% in the Northern District of Texas. 

Production of child pornography can be charged in state or federal court, but, unlike child sex trafficking, only federal cases require restitution.  

Child pornography is particularly prevalent in the Northern District, which had the third-highest number of cases over the past decade. The victims are especially young: In 83% of production cases, victims were 12 or younger, according to federal sentencing data. 

Child pornography — possession and production — is now called “child sexual abuse material” to better reflect the nature of the crime, which often involves rape.

The News found recent local cases involving children 12 or younger. Among them:  

A Fort Worth retiree took photographs while he raped a baby at his house; a Tarrant County man in his 20s filmed himself sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl; and a Forney man in his 30s filmed himself molesting a toddler.

None of those pedophiles was forced to pay restitution, nor was it sought by prosecutors or required by judges. 

“It’s sad…I know what a lot of them are going to be going through,” said a survivor who continues to struggle with the knowledge that the images of his sexual abuse will continue to circulate online. “If there were more resources available…we would be in a lot better place.”

The News does not identify victims of sexual assault.

Now an adult, he was sexually abused from ages 8 to 15. He agreed to share his experience because he wants to increase public awareness of the ongoing trauma that survivors of child pornography crimes must live with. 

“It’s like a feeling of impending doom,” he said. “It is being re-shared and re-shown, over and over and over. There’s no putting it behind you. There is going to be a constant darkness in your life…you’re going to have to face that monster when it comes back.”

He said he was lucky enough to receive some restitution. Having an attorney to advocate for him and help him with the restitution part was, he said, invaluable. It allows him to take time to speak to a counselor or therapist when he needs to – or just withdraw from life periodically. 

“You just want to hide,” he said. “That’s what restitution helps with.”

He said it took him 23 years to finally be able to speak about his ordeal. Some will never make it to that point, he said, particularly if they are not aware of available resources.

“I’m one of the luckier ones.”

Susanna Southworth is an attorney in Tacoma, Wash., with an organization called Restore the Child that seeks restitution on behalf of child pornography victims. She said there is “great variation” among federal districts in terms of awarding restitution, as well as variation among judges in a district.  

“Even with the mandatory minimum,” of $3,000 she said, “there are federal courts that won’t order restitution for whatever reason.”  

Southworth said victim advocates need better training to help survivors request restitution in court.   

Just as it is with child sex trafficking, much of the explanation for why so few cases result in an order of restitution rests with a process that relies on prosecutors, who represent the government, not the victim, to make the request to judges. 

Although restitution is mandated, there is no repercussion on prosecutors for not seeking it. Enforcement falls to individual judges, many of whom are reluctant to order restitution unless requested by the prosecutor.   

Prosecutors cite various reasons for not seeking restitution, including the presumption that abusers either don’t have money or it’s difficult to ascertain their assets. There also is some reluctance because restitution is often rolled into plea negotiations where the priority is to seek a conviction, not debate assets. 

Mandatory restitution for child pornography victims is found in Section 2259 in Title 18 of the United States Code. The law was initially passed in 1986 and subsequently amended by Congress with major updates in 1996 and in 2018, when the $3,000 minimum restitution payment for each victim was established. 

 
The law permits federal authorities to seize homes if owners use them to view or trade in child pornography. That’s because it facilitates the crime by providing them with the safety and privacy to do so. Such a move is extremely rare. 

Jeffrey Davis lost his Dallas home in 2008 for downloading child pornography when he agreed to forfeit it as part of his guilty plea, court records show. He was not ordered to pay restitution to his victims, according to court records. The government kept the proceeds of the house sale. 

Federal prosecutors have sometimes sought fines against convicted child sexual abusers but not restitution for their victims, court records show.  

Fines are paid to the government.  

As The News found with sex trafficking cases, when child pornography victims have pro bono lawyers, the outcome is substantially better for them.  

“It’s just so graphic – the difference it makes to have a pro bono on your side,” said Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center. “It’s absolutely stark.” 

Vandenberg said the “biggest success stories” are cases where pro bono lawyers did all the work in calculating restitution for the victims and submitting it to the court.  

Such cases are rare.  

“They should not have to have lawyers,” said Margaret Mabie, whose New York law firm represents child survivors. “It is the government’s job to enforce the rights of the victims.” 

Mabie and other lawyers at the Marsh Law Firm are among the few in the U.S. who take such cases. Her firm exclusively represents survivors of sexual assault, child pornography, child exploitation and child trafficking. The firm has been instrumental in shaping federal laws that allow survivors to sue their abusers in civil actions.  

Mabie said Supreme Court case law allows survivors to receive substantial sums from their abusers who use them to produce illicit images. 

“For those hands-on victims, these should be seven, eight-figure awards,” she said. “This is the creator of the image.” 

Children whose sexual abuse is used to create images are less likely in North Texas to receive restitution than those whose images are traded online, sentencing data show, even though their immediate needs are greater.  

“This is their first encounter with the criminal justice system,” Mabie said. “These are victims fresh out of trauma. They’re very rarely receiving any type of therapy. And now they’re being asked to put together a legal [restitution] brief when they’ve never been to law school.” 

The situation is compounded by Texas state law. 

Child pornography is so prevalent, FBI and Homeland Security agents couldn’t possibly take every case, Mabie said, so they have to rely on local police and prosecutors. Mabie said two-thirds of child pornography prosecutions happen at the state level. 

Unlike federal law, Texas has no requirement to provide restitution in child pornography cases, and unlike federal law, it also doesn’t require victims to be notified of new cases involving their images if they request it.

Gemond Copage Miller filmed himself sexually assaulting children as young as 6 and sold the footage online. The Dallas man admitted to abusing at least 10 girls under the age of 12. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison. He was not ordered to pay restitution. 

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr said at the 2024 sentencing hearing in Dallas that he wasn’t ordering restitution because “no claims have been filed as of today.” The law does not require victims to submit a formal request for restitution. 

One of Miller’s victims prepared a statement that was read by her mother at sentencing. 

“I have been forced to live with the fear and anxiety that comes with being a victim of violence. And my sense of safety and security has been shattered,” she said. “I’m very uncomfortable around others outside of my immediate family, which causes me to be antisocial.” 

The number of offenders convicted on federal charges of producing child pornography increased 422% from 2005 to 2019, according to the Sentencing Commission. And the number of child pornography production cases involving infants or toddlers more than quadrupled from 2017 to 2020, the commission has reported.  

Of those sentenced in 2023 nationwide, 47% were trafficking in child pornography and 44% were prosecuted for possessing it, according to Sentencing Commission reports.  

The commission acknowledges child pornography is a crime that never really goes away. Nor does the harm. 

“Once an image is distributed via the Internet, it is impossible to eradicate all copies of it or to control access to it. The harm to victims is thus lifelong,” a 2012 commission report said. Further, it noted that victims of child pornography “live with persistent concern over who has seen images of their sexual abuse.” 

The Justice Department has acknowledged the ongoing harm in its literature about child pornography, noting it “often creates lasting psychological damage to the child.” 

Under federal law, district courts are obligated to order restitution for victims of child pornography offenses, without regard to whether defendants can pay. 

Separate from criminal restitution, two laws Congress passed in 2015 and 2018 require convicted child pornography offenders to pay certain financial penalties, or assessments.

The 2015 Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act requires non-indigent child sexual exploitation offenders to pay a $5,000 assessment that goes into a central fund that’s used to compensate victims.  

The law allows judges to consider a defendant’s “future earning capacity” when determining whether they are indigent. Therefore, even a convicted sex trafficker who is broke could be assessed the fine if they are able-bodied with some education or vocational skills. Such a person could find employment upon release from prison, according to case law.  

So even though Gary Don Boyd Graves qualified for a federal public defender for his child pornography possession case, Senior District Judge Sam Cummings determined he could pay the $5,000 assessment at his 2017 sentencing due to his “potential future earning potential.”  

The Lubbock judge considered evidence that Graves had taken some college courses; had a long employment history and vocational skills; had previously earned $40,000 per year; and was able- bodied, court records show. The judge sentenced Graves to nine years in prison. The 5th Circuit upheld the restitution judgment on appeal.  

The 2015 law created the mandatory $5,000 assessment. In 2018, Congress passed the Amy, Vicky and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act. That law established the minimum $3,000 restitution payment as well as a fund from which survivors can apply for and receive up to $35,000 in a one-time payment.

The purpose of that law is to allow victims the chance to receive restitution without having to hire lawyers and experts to prove their losses in court.  

Yet when Keith Plaskonos was sentenced to 60 years in prison in March for recording his rape of two children, ages 1 and 4, the judge did not order him to pay any compensation. Plaskonos, 69, owned a house and hired his own lawyer, court records show. 

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman waived the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Act assessment at the Fort Worth sentencing. And he did not order restitution because “the victims of the offenses have not submitted any request.” Victim requests, however, are not required under the law. 

Child pornography can be viewed and shared repeatedly by numerous people over time. Therefore, a single victim may be eligible to receive restitution in hundreds of criminal cases in federal courts nationwide.  

And a defendant may be ordered to pay restitution to multiple victims.  

When Michael Huffman was convicted of distributing child pornography images, Pittman in late 2025 ordered him to pay $3,000 in restitution to each of his more than 35 victims, for a total of over $100,000, court records show.  

Huffman pleaded guilty and is serving more than 12 years in prison.  

Many others avoided having to pay any restitution to their victims, even though they possessed the financial means to do so. 

Robert Kerr, a radio and television producer, was caught trading child pornography. He pleaded guilty in Dallas to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced in 2020 to more than a dozen years in prison. A forensic analysis of Kerr’s laptop and external hard drive turned up over 24,000 images and 1,000 videos of child pornography, court records show.

Kerr hired his attorney. He was assessed the $5,000, which goes toward the general victims’ fund. U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay did not require him to pay any restitution to his victims. Instead, the judge fined Kerr $20,000, which goes to the government. Over a year later, government lawyers obtained a garnishment order against Kerr’s retirement fund, which held more than $51,800, to pay the outstanding fines, court records show. 

Kerr, 55, owned his Irving house, where he lived alone. He was allowed to sell it several months after his arrest. It’s possible none of the children depicted in his downloaded photos and videos could be identified for purposes of restitution. The court file is silent as to the reasoning.

Mabie, of the Marsh law firm, said her clients have told her they are willing to take from their abusers the fruit of their labors, even if it’s a modest sum, because there’s a “sense of justice” in that.  

Mabie said that, generally, prosecutors do a poor job of collecting restitution judgments – even from offenders with assets. She gave them a C-minus grade.  

Some prosecutors will use their discretion on sentencing decisions as leverage to push the defendant to agree to restitution, Mabie said. Other prosecutors, she said, fear restitution could result in appeals or might upset plea negotiations.  

That also was one of the common reasons cited for why prosecutors fail to seek restitution in child sex trafficking cases. 

Another reason prosecutors cited for not seeking restitution is that, unlike financial crimes, it can be a difficult process to determine the abuser’s assets.  

That problem is compounded in child pornography cases because transactions are increasingly relying on bitcoin and other cryptocurrency in darknet marketplaces on the dark web, according to government and private studies. 

Federal prosecutors in Texas and elsewhere are slow to seize and forfeit virtual currency to compensate child victims of sexual exploitation. Some members of Congress have begun to demand that the DOJ do more to stop the use of cryptocurrency in these crimes.  

In 2024, for example, two U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wrote a letter to the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary, pushing them to provide Congress the information it needed to begin addressing the problem of cryptocurrency being “the payment of choice” for child abusers and exploiters.  
 

“Existing anti-money laundering rules and law enforcement methods face challenges in effectively detecting and preventing these crimes – and we seek to ensure that Congress and the Administration are doing their part to address these challenges,” the senators wrote.  

It’s not clear what became of their request. Two separate emails to the senators’ press contacts did not elicit a reply.

Dynamic Securities Analytics Inc., a Florida financial consulting firm, said the use of cryptocurrency as payment for child pornography “contributed to the dramatic increase” in such material online.  

Financial institutions that file Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reports “overwhelmingly” identified bitcoin as the primary cryptocurrency used in child sexual exploitation and human trafficking activities in 2020 and 2021, according to a 2024 report from a bureau of the U.S. Treasury.  

Among more than 2,300 BSA reports filed those years, 93% involved payments in bitcoin, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN. 

Texas passed a law that took effect in 2025 that formally allows state law enforcement to seize digital currency, although some police agencies were already doing so, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. The News could not find a publicized instance in which the state did so to satisfy restitution in a child sexual abuse case.  

A few years ago, the federal government took down foreign-based web sites that sold child pornography in exchange for virtual currency.  

For example, a Dutch national was charged in Washington, D.C., federal court in 2020 for operating the site Dark Scandals on the dark web. The case remains pending.  

A similar website shut down in 2019 in South Korea was called Welcome to Video. Federal authorities in Washington, D.C., called it the “largest darknet child pornography website funded by bitcoin” and also the “largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content.”  

Several Texans were among those arrested and convicted in connection with the case – including a Border Patrol agent and a former Homeland Security Investigations agent. Some of the men were ordered to pay restitution.  

No cryptocurrency was seized from them.