Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced thatWilliam Thomas Hammond, age 47, of Cleburne, Texas, was sentenced to 188 months in federal prison followed by ten (10) years of supervised release on one count of Transportation of a Minor with Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity. The sentencing hearing took place before the Honorable Chief Judge P. K. Holmes, III in the United States District Court in Fort Smith.
According to the plea agreement, in the Spring of 2015, Hammond began an online relationship with a 14-year-old minor female that included conversations of a sexual nature. In April of 2015, Hammond traveled from his residence in Cleburne, Texas to Harrison, Arkansas, rented a hotel room for several days, and engaged in sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old minor who he had picked up at her residence in Mt. Judea. On or about May 14, 2015, Hammond traveled from his residence in Cleburne, Texas to Mt. Judea, Arkansas where he picked up the minor and took her back to his residence in Texas. On or about May 17, 2015, Hammond was stopped by a Newton County Sheriff’s deputy and was found to be traveling with the minor. During an interview with the minor, she advised Hammond picked her up in Arkansas and took her to Texas and engaged in sexual intercourse with her on several occasions before bringing her back to Arkansas. Hammond was indicted by a federal grand jury on December 9, 2015 and pleaded guilty on May 11, 2016.
"The sentencing of Hammond is the result of strong collaboration with the Newton County Sheriff’s Office and Project Safe Childhood,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge David Shepard with the FBI in Little Rock. “The United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI along with our law enforcement partners will work tirelessly to bring to justice those who prey on our children and rob them of their innocence.”
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Newton County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Denis Dean prosecuted the case for the United States.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and their Criminal Division Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Sections (CEOS), 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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

                                                 William Hammond