United States v. Lewis

A special agent, posing as a woman with two young daughters, logged onto a Yahoo! Internet chat room. A user with the screenname “sigmadogman” initiated a conversation with the agent and indicated an interest in engaging in sexual acts with the agent’s daughters. “Sigmadogman” sent the agent 20 images depicting sexual acts and subsequently indicated his willingness to travel from Michigan to Miami and pay to have sex with the agent and her daughters. Yahoo! was subpoenaed, revealed that “sigmadogman” was registered to Todd Lewis (defendant), and provided the IP addresses Lewis had used. The Internet provider of those addresses confirmed that the addresses had been assigned to Lewis. Officers executed a search warrant. Lewis admitted that his computer contained child pornography and that he had chatted with the agent about traveling to Florida and paying for sex with the agent’s children. Lewis’s computer was seized. A forensic examination revealed that child-pornography images were stored on the computer. Lewis pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1), which prohibited knowingly transporting in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer or mail, any visual depiction involving the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. In calculating Lewis’s offense level under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G.), the district court added two levels under § 2G2.2(b)(6) for using a computer to transmit illicit images. On appeal, Lewis argued that applying the two-level enhancement was impermissible double-counting because computer use was an inherent element of the offense to which he had pleaded guilty.