RALEIGH — A convicted sex offender from Fayetteville was sentenced to nearly 17 years in federal prison Monday for trading pornographic images of children online.
Francis Joseph Brady, 60, of Fayetteville, pleaded guilty Jan. 19 to possession of child pornography. In exchange for the plea, the government dismissed four counts of receipt of child pornography. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan on Monday to 16 years 8 months in prison followed by 25 years supervised release, the court record shows.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of N.C., the investigation began in June 2015, when FBI agents in Louisville, Kentucky, seized the phone of a child exploitation suspect. The phone revealed multiple individuals with whom the Louisville man had traded images of child pornography and discussed sexually abusing children using the messaging platform Kik.