Paris Man Sentenced To 25 Years For Producing Child Pornography

JACKSON, Tenn. – United States Attorney Kevin G. Ritz announced Thursday that 56-year-old Charles Anthony Anderson was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for the production of child pornography and committing that offense as a registered sex offender.

According to information presented in court, Anderson was convicted in Florida in 2003 of two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a minor under 12 years of age. Anderson served 60 months on community corrections in that case. As part of that case, Anderson was required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

In February 2021, Anderson asked a few people to do some cleaning and fix a security camera for him at his business in Buchanan, Tenn. Anderson was part-owner of Mountain Top Vapors, a vape/smoke shop in Henry County. While one of them was working on the security camera, he saw a cell phone hidden on top of a China cabinet. He took the phone home with him, charged it, and powered it up to see if he could determine the owner of the phone. When he turned it on, he saw a photo of a naked prepubescent girl as the phone’s screen saver. He then went into the photo gallery on the phone and saw other images, including one which depicted the child engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Other information on the phone indicated that it belonged to Anderson. When he confronted Anderson about the images, Anderson admitted to taking the pictures. He was then reported to the police.

On May 5, 2021, Anderson appeared at the Henry County Sheriff’s Office. He gave a full recorded confession and admitted to taking the photos found on his phone.

Federal agents were contacted and obtained a federal search warrant to search Anderson’s phone. Images recovered from the phone corroborated Anderson’s admissions and the information provided to the police.

A forensic review of Anderson’s phone identified several images that had metadata indicating that they were produced using that phone on specific dates in 2019, including the image set forth in the first count of the indictment, which was produced on September 1, 2019, and which depicted a minor victim engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

As noted above, Anderson was required to register as a sex offender under SORNA when he committed the offense set forth in Count 1 of the indictment on or about September 1, 2019.

On November 16, 2022, Chief Judge S. Thomas Anderson sentenced the defendant to a total of 25 years imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was investigated by the Henry County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. United States Attorney Kevin Ritz thanked Assistant United States Attorneys Deb Ireland and Josh Morrow, who prosecuted this case for the government.