United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Jeffrey T. Ehlers, 60, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln, Nebraska, to 84 months in prison by Chief United States District Judge John M. Gerrard, for possession of child pornography.  In addition to his prison sentence, Ehlers will be required to serve 12 years on federal supervised release and register as a sex offender. 

In September of 2017, the Bellevue police department received a call for service from a group home leader. The caller reported that one of the foster children, a female minor, was having an inappropriate relationship with an adult male. The defendant Jeffrey T. Ehlers became a subject of interest in the investigation of the complaint.

On February 27, 2018, officers with the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) went to Ehlers home.  Ehlers consented to speak with the officers and through the course of his interaction with NSP officers, Ehlers admitted that child pornography might be found on the electronic devices in his home. Ehlers provided consent for the officers to seize and search his electronic devices including desktop and laptop computers. Upon examination of Ehlers’ devices more than 600 image files containing child pornography were found including videos and images of prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Additionally, there were files documenting Yahoo Messenger conversations between Ehlers and other Yahoo Messenger users. The messages contained content indicating that Ehlers was sending and receiving files containing child pornography with other Yahoo Messenger users.

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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

This case was investigated by the Nebraska State Patrol.