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A Fort Dodge man will spend a decade in federal prison after pleading guilty to receiving child pornography over the internet.
Billy Jack Canavan, 48, pleaded guilty to the charge in United States District Court Northern District of Iowa on Aug. 9, 2021. On Dec. 3, 2021, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
According to a press release from the Northern District of Iowa, in his plea, Canavan admitted to receiving "visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct" from April 13, 2018, through Oct. 21, 2019.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a cyber tip from Dropbox Inc. in July 2019 of an account containing child pornography registered in Fort Dodge.
The Fort Dodge/Webster County Cyber Crimes Unit then executed a search warrant on the Dropbox account and seized a hard drive containing additional images and videos.
Canavan admitted the Dropbox account belonged to him and that he knowingly received child pornography through the account.
An Oct. 25, 2019, search warrant on Canavan's residence resulted in the seizure of a Google Pixel smartphone, Samsung Galaxy J7 Sky Pro, a CoolPad cell phone and a Toshiba hard drive. Canavan also admitted to using these devices to access multiple online accounts where he stored child pornography.
In addition to 120 months in federal prison, Canavan was ordered to make $15,000 restitution to the victims and must serve a five-year term of supervised release after his prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
The case was investigated by the Fort Dodge Police Department and Webster County Sheriff's Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Mikala Steenholdt and Timothy Duax.