Oklahoma Man Sentenced to 84 Months in Federal Prison for Receipt of Child Pornography

United States Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles sentenced David John Ballance, age 58, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, to 84 months in federal prison following his conviction for receipt of child pornography. Ballance must serve five years of supervised release upon completing his term of imprisonment. The Court also ordered Ballance to pay $3,000 in restitution and ordered him to register as a sex offender upon his release.

According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, in July 2021, Ballance, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, began communicating with a 13-year-old minor located in the Middle District of Louisiana. Ballance told the minor that he was 23 years old, when he was in fact 54 years old, and identified himself by a false name. The communications began via an on-line gaming application that allowed for direct messaging between players. Ballance then began using a separate social media platform that allowed for one-on-one communications between parties. During the period of communications, he knew that the individual with whom he was communicating was younger than 16.

Between July 2021 and October 2021, Ballance started introducing intimate language in the communications with the minor, and knowingly sent images containing explicit content. The minor then sent explicit images of themself to Ballance via the internet. The image was taken by the minor and transmitted to Ballance by the minor in October 2021 through an application set to allow images to remain visible for five seconds. During those five seconds, however, for the aforementioned image and others of the minor, Ballance was able to capture them before they disappeared from the social media application.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Paul L. Pugliese.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc.