A former Vancouver, Washington resident who pleaded guilty last March to Receipt of Child Pornography failed to show up for sentencing this morning in U.S. District Court in Tacoma. 47-year-old PAUL ERIC PRESLEY, had been released on bond with Geographic Positioning System (GPS) monitoring. On Saturday, November 15, 2008, PRESLEY cut off his GPS ankle bracelet, and apparently fled his Portland, Oregon residence.

At his sentencing hearing scheduled for this morning in front of U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle, prosecutors were asking for a 71 month prison sentence. According to PRESLEY's plea agreement, on December 6, 2006, Vancouver Police responded to a 9-1-1 call at PRESLEY's home. PRESLEY's wife told the officers she called 9-1-1 because PRESLEY had child pornography stored on his desktop and laptop computers. Officers seized the desktop computer but did not find the laptop. The next day PRESLEY's daughter and her boyfriend delivered the laptop to police saying PRESLEY had given them the computer and told them to dispose of it. A forensic examination of the computer revealed more than 2,900 images and 235 movies of children engaged in explicit sexual conduct.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence at the high end of PRESLEY's guidelines range noting "Paul Eric Presley is sexually fixated with children. He has downloaded, stored, and viewed thousands of images of child pornography." The Government noted that the evidence suggested that Presley was openly sexually interested in at least one member of his own family.

PRESLEY's failure to appear for his hearing means he may now be charged with a separate crime punishable by up to ten years in prison.

In order to locate and arrest PRESLEY, law enforcement is releasing his booking photo and asking anyone with knowledge of PRESLEY's whereabouts to contact law enforcement in their area by calling 9-1-1, or to contact the FBI at 360-695-5661.

To obtain a copy of the booking photo via email please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney's Office, at (206) 553-4110.

The case was investigated by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and the FBI.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Mike Dion and David Reese Jennings.