Dominic Pace - Pleads guilty on child pornography charges

A Greenville man pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in U.S. District Court on Tuesday after a Florida detective working undercover received videos over the Internet of a female child being sexually assaulted.

Dominic Pace, 28, pleaded guilty to producing, selling and possessing child pornography. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 11, about a year after he was federally indicted, according to U.S. Attorney Thomas Colantuono.

An investigation began when the undercover officer working as an Internet Crimes Against Children detective received the videos from someone in Massachusetts. Further investigation revealed that the person purchased the images from Pace and that Pace had produced the images, Colantuono said.

The U.S. Secret Service searched Pace's computer and found those images plus hundreds of other examples of child pornography, Colantuono said.

Pace was arrested in March 2008, and on May 14, 2008, a federal Grand Jury indicted him on three counts, Colantuono said.

The person who purchased the original videos from Pace is in federal custody in Florida, he said. If the judge accepts the terms of the plea agreement, Pace will serve a 40-year sentence in federal prison and could be on parole for the rest of his life, Colantuono said.

The case was conducted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the sexual exploitation of children. It was launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Colantuono said.