A Grand Island man who will stand trial for kidnapping and rape of a child has in the meantime been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.
Abraham Richardson, age
26, was sentenced on August 9, 2012, in
Lincoln to 20 years in prison
by Senior United States District Judge Richard G. Kopf for receiving and sharing child porn.
The judge also required Richardson to supervised release for the rest of his life, even after he's out of prison.
The action comes as Richardson awaits trial in Hall County for allegedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl.
The federal child porn case came about through an undercover FBI operation.
In March 2010, an investigator with
the FBI in Rochester, New York, was able to access child pornography
images from computers that were using
file sharing software publicly available on the internet. Investigators determined Richardson was one of
the users who sent a friend request to an undercover investigator and
allowed the investigator to view and download files
which contained child pornography.
A search
warrant was executed at Richardson's residence in Grand Island in
February 2011.
According to the U.S. Attorney for Nebraska, they seized computers and discs which revealed over
15,000 images of child pornography.
This case was investigated by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.
In the local court case, Richardson is accused of snatching a girl from her home and raping her at the Riverbend Apartments in Grand Island.
According to court records, around 10:40 p.m.
on the night of Oct. 2, 2011, a woman driving through the apartment complex
heard a child yelling and the voice of a man saying "hush." The woman
shined her headlights in the direction of the voices and saw a man
holding a little girl.
When the suspect saw the car, he immediately threw the victim to the ground and fled into a nearby cornfield.
A neighbor of the victim also heard what she
said sounded like animals fighting outside her bedroom. When she got up
to see what it was, she saw the victim outside, wearing nothing but a
pajama top and crying.
The neighbor asked the little girl if she
needed help, and she said 'yes.' The woman noticed the girl had obvious
sexual assault injuries and was saying "he took my pants off" and "he
hurt my body."
The victim was taken to St. Francis Medical Center for a medical exam and DNA samples were taken.
In an interview at Grand Island's Child
Advocacy Center, the little girl told police that she went into her
mother's bedroom to get something, and when she shut the door, "the bad
man" grabbed her. She said he told her it would "be over in a minute."
Authorities haven't said how Richardson got into the apartment or if he has any connection to the victim's family.
Police tracked him down after receiving
several anonymous phone calls from residents who said they believed the
suspect was Richardson, who also lives in the Riverbend Apartment
complex.
After searching Richardson's girlfriend's apartment, police found a pair of the man's shorts with the victim's DNA.
It took until the early days of 2012 to issue the arrest warrant for the alleged assault, police explained,
because they had to wait for evidence to come back from the Nebraska
State Patrol Crime Lab.
He faces six felony counts in Hall County.
