A federal grand jury indicted Pruitt on July 17, 2018, on one count of distributing and one count of accessing child pornography. According to Count 2, he used a cell phone to access child pornography stored on an Internet-based cloud storage service between Aug. 20, 2015, and March 13, 2018. Count 1 alleged he distributed child pornography through the Internet between those same dates. The Bureau of Indian Affairs investigated the case because Pruitt worked at the Sugar Creek Casino in Hinton, on land held in trust for the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, and committed the offense in Indian Country. Pruitt pleaded guilty to Count 1the distribution counton Oct. 2, 2018. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the government has dismissed Count 2.
Today U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti sentenced Pruitt to 120 months, or ten years, in prison. After release from prison, he will serve eight years on supervised release. Pruitt has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since September 4, 2018, when he was removed from a halfway house program that the court had imposed as a condition of pre-trial release.
This case is the result of an investigation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the assistance of the City of Anadarko Police Department and the U.S. Secret Services Oklahoma Financial and Electronic Crimes Task Force. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Hale.
This case is also part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice, 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.justice.gov/psc.
Reference is made to public filings for further information.
-- Western District of Oklahoma
Source: U.S. Secret Service