Brownsville Man Sentenced On Child Porn Charges

A Brownsville man has been sentenced in federal court to fifty-one months’ imprisonment, ten years of supervised release, and has been ordered to pay $28,000.00 in restitution on his conviction of possessing material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor.  United States District Judge Cathy Bissoon imposed the sentence on 52-year-old Karl D. Lutes.  Authorities say Lutes had been sharing images over the Internet which depicted the sexual exploitation of minors. He was identified through an investigation undertaken by agents of Homeland Security Investigations. On February 11, 2020, agents executed a search warrant at Lutes’s residence and found him in possession of hundreds of videos and still images in computer graphics files depicting the sexual exploitation of minors, some of whom had not yet attained the age of 12 years.  Prior to imposing sentence, Judge Bissoon stated that a sentence that included 51 months in prison served to protect the public, to provide for just punishment, and to afford Lutes with needed rehabilitation. Judge Bisson further highlighted that the submitted victim impact statements provided a view of the real harm to children stemming from crimes involving their sexual exploitation.