Antony Eugene Woody, 33, Orange Park, has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of advertising images depicting the sexual abuse of children for sale using the internet.
Woody faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years, and up to, 30 years in federal prison, and a potential life term of supervised release.
According to court documents, in February 2019, the FBI discovered that an online user named “imsoofreakyy” was using a particular social media application to offer child sex abuse images for sale on the internet.
Meanwhile, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) received a Cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the same user “imsoofreakyy” was using a particular email address to advertise images of children being sexually assaulted. CCSO detectives were able to identify this individual as Antony Eugene Woody, who resided in Orange Park.
On March 22, 2019, CCSO officers and FBI agents executed a search warrant at Woody’s residence and made contact with him. During an interview with law enforcement, Woody admitted that he downloaded child sex abuse images from the internet, labeled these images with titles, prices, and his online contact information, and then re-posted them for sale using a social media app.
Woody also admitted that online customers responded to his advertisements, that he would receive money for these sales using Venmo, and that he defrauded some of these customers by taking their money but refusing to send them the contraband images that they had purchased.
Woody received at least $995 in profits from these sales through the Venmo app. A search of Woody’s cellular telephone revealed 33 videos and 40 images depicting the sexual abuse of children. Two of these images bore superimposed advertising language that was created and placed on them by Woody.
This case was investigated by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, the Westbrook (Maine) Police Department, the Broward County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Boston and Jacksonville), with the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
This is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”