LUBBOCK, TX – Robert Lawrence Noll, 40, of Brownwood, Texas, appeared Wednesday in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy M. Koenig and pleaded guilty to one count of possession of prepubescent child pornography, announced John Parker, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

Noll, who is on bond, faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, and a lifetime of supervised release. Sentencing will be set at a later date.

According to documents filed in the case, Noll used a laptop computer at his residence to search the Internet for images and videos of child pornography. In the course of searching for this material, Noll located, downloaded, and viewed numerous images and videos constituting child pornography, and some of those images involved prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Brown County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy is in charge of the prosecution.