Arizona man who collected, shared vast quantities of child sexual abuse material sentenced

PHOENIX — A federal judge sentenced an Arizona man last week to more than 10 years in prison for collecting and sharing large quantities of child sexual abuse material, authorities said.

James Stacey Porter, 59, was sentenced to 129 months in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.

He received his sentence after pleading guilty to distributing child pornography last October, prosecutors said.

FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Rebecca Day described Porter’s actions as reprehensible.

“The FBI and our law enforcement partners remain resolute in keeping children in our communities safe, and those who prey on children will be pursued, investigated and held accountable — no matter how long it takes,” Day said.

Arizona man had more than 3,500 images of child sexual abuse

Porter’s sentencing came around a decade after his crimes, which the FBI uncovered during an investigation that lasted from 2016 to 2017.

He was detected in a BitTorrent file sharing network, prosecutors said. BitTorrent is a type of online tool often used by pedophiles to share illegal material while staying anonymous, according to researchers from Tel Aviv University.

Investigators were able to connect to Porter’s computer in Phoenix and found that he’d been sharing child sexual abuse material.

After years of seeking this type of material online, he’d amassed 3,509 image files and 175 video files depicting child sexual exploitation, prosecutors said.

Porter was convicted while he was serving time in state prison for sexually exploiting a minor. He was sentenced to 10 years for the previous case in August 2024.

U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said the material Porter possessed caused significant emotional distress to the child victims.

“Every offender in a file sharing network, like BitTorrent used in this case, is able to grow his collection exponentially with a click of the button at the expense of the minors depicted,” Courchaine said. “We are committed to focusing on not only the producers, but on those who participate in distributing and receiving such illegal materials and bring them to justice.”

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