PHOENIX – A Peoria man, Joseph Charles Nolan, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor. Nolan pleaded guilty to two felony counts, each involving an image of a girl whom doctors estimated to be less than 13-years-old.
Nolan will serve a term of lifetime probation when he is released from prison which is expected to be September 2030. Nolan will also be required to register as a sex offender when he is released.
In March of 2016, according to the Arizona’s Attorney General’s Office, investigators with the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Tucson identified a computer from the Phoenix metropolitan area that was sharing video files containing graphic depictions of child sexual exploitation online through a peer-to-peer file trading network. Investigators traced the computer to an apartment in Peoria, and passed the tip to the Phoenix HSI Office for follow up.
HSI agents tracked Nolan to a second apartment in Peoria, where they executed a search warrant on November 3, 2016.
After he was arrested, Nolan admitted he lived alone in the first apartment during the time that the Tucson-based agents downloaded the exploitative images from his computer. Agents searching Nolan’s apartment located a Toshiba laptop and two external storage drives, upon which forensic analysis later found images and videos of child sexual exploitation. Analysis also showed the peer-to-peer file sharing software had been installed on the computer during the time that the Tucson-based agents were downloading images from his computer.