SACRAMENTO - Mark Corum, 62, of Sacramento, pleaded guilty today to four counts of production of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. According to court documents, Corum engaged in Skype conversations with various Skype users in the Philippines in which he instructed the other parties to perform sexual acts on children while he watched on live webcam.
Corum sent the persons in the Philippines payments of between $25 and $35 via money transmittal services in exchange for them performing the sexual acts he requested on children and transmitting the images to him via webcam. Transcripts of the Skype chats filed with the court reflect that, at Corum’s direction, children between the ages of infancy and 10 years old were sexually abused. The Skype chats also contain statements by Corum alluding to prior trips to the Philippines and sex acts with children there.
He stated that he had visited the Philippines “many times” and had “many good memories.” He also indicated that if he visited the Philippines again, he wanted to have sex with one of the children he had directed to be abused, a six-year-old girl. In addition, on June 23, 2016, Corum used the internet to transmit images of prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct to another person.
This case was investigated by the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, a federally and state-funded task force managed by the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department with agents from federal, state, and local agencies. The Sacramento ICAC investigates online child exploitation crimes, including child pornography, enticement, and sex trafficking. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine T. Lydon and Jill Thomas are prosecuting the case.
Corum is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller on October 29, 2018. Corum faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison on the distribution of child pornography count and a maximum statutory penalty of 30 years in prison on each of the four production of child pornography counts, as well as a maximum statutory fine of $250,000 on each count. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.
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 those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. Click on the “resources” tab for information about internet safety education.
