KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – On September 25, 2024, a federal jury in Knoxville convicted Christopher Edward Allen, 34, of Kingston, TN, on nine counts related to child pornography and attempting to entice minors into unlawful sexual activity. The charges include three counts of attempting to entice a minor for unlawful sexual activity, one count of producing child pornography, two counts of attempting to produce child pornography, two counts of transporting visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and one count of transferring obscene material.
Allen’s sentencing is scheduled for February 6, 2025, at 2:00 pm before Judge Thomas A. Varlan in the United States District Court at Knoxville. He faces a potential life sentence.
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Evidence presented at the trial revealed that Allen used various social media platforms to identify and entice minors into unlawful sexual activities. Allen requested and paid for nude images from minors, which he later emailed to himself. He also sent sexually explicit images of himself to minors and met one minor in person at his workplace before communicating further over social media. Law enforcement, with the consent of the minor’s parents, assumed the minor’s identity on social media, leading to Allen’s arrest at a park in Kingston, TN.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Tennessee’s Ninth Judicial District Attorney General’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer Kolman and William A. Roach, Jr. represented the United States at the trial.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. For more information about PSC, please visit www.justice.gov/psc. For resources on internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc/resources.html and click on the “resources” tab.
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