Perry child sex offender sentenced to 10 years

A registered child sex offender living in Perry was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday after an international investigation found he was uploading child pornography on an instant messaging app, said Charles “Charlie” Peeler, the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia.

U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell sentenced David Franklin Browder, III, 31, of Perry, Georgia to 120 months in prison followed by 25 years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. Judge Treadwell also ordered that Browder pay $3,000 in restitution to each identifiable victim in the 213 images of child sexual exploitation the defendant possessed. Browder will also have to register as a sex offender in any state where he resides following his release from prison. According to Judge Treadwell, there is no parole in the federal system.

The defendant admitted that, using the name “yappydappy,” he uploaded images of minors, including an infant, being sexually abused onto the Kik instant messaging app. Stated in a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Georgia, Canadian authorities first began investigating the case in 2019, discovering the account was associated with an IP address located in the United States.

The Canadian authorities provided the file to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Atlanta, through the HSI Cyber Crimes Center for further investigation. On January 8, 2020, HSI agents, with the assistance of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office, executed a federal search warrant at the Perry residence where the defendant lived, seizing devices belonging to Browder.

An HSI forensic analysis found approximately 213 image files containing child sexual exploitation material. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Child Recognition and Identification System (CRIS) was used to identify child victims contained in the images. In all, the CRIS system identified 49 images from nine known series of child pornography contained within the defendant’s image files.

Browder is a repeat child sex offender and was convicted in 2008 in the Houston County Superior Court for criminal attempt to commit child molestation and sexual battery of a minor.

“Browder is a repeat child sex offender, with two previous state convictions for egregious crimes against children in Houston County,” Peeler said. “He will now spend the next ten years in a federal prison, where there is no parole. Tracking down this child predator and removing him from the streets of Perry, is the result of the excellent partnership between HSI Ottawa and HSI Atlanta. I want to thank both agencies for their work in this case, and for their total dedication to saving children worldwide from the grip of their abusers.”

“The children of Houston County should sleep easier knowing a child pedophile is off their streets for the next decade,” said acting Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama. “These types of heinous investigations wouldn’t be possible without the great partnerships of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

HHJ News