U.S. District Judge Eric C. Schulte has sentenced a St. Francis, South Dakota, man convicted of Possession of Child Pornography. The sentencing took place on January 13, 2025. Clyde Chasing Hawk, a/k/a Clyde Clairmont, age 24, was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Chasing Hawk was further ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $3,000. Chasing Hawk was indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2023. He pleaded guilty on October 15, 2024. Between April 2023 and November 2023, Chasing Hawk searched for and downloaded child pornography via the internet. He saved multiple images and videos of child pornography to his Google and Yahoo accounts and to his electronic devices. Law enforcement began investigating Chasing Hawk in June of 2023, based on CyberTips received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which indicated Chasing Hawk was using his Google and Yahoo accounts to store child pornography. In November of 2023, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Chasing Hawk’s residence in St. Francis, seizing multiple electronic devices that contained child pornography. Chasing Hawk will forfeit ownership of these devices to 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 the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc. This case was investigated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) – Office of Justice Services Missing and Murdered Unit, the BIA Division of Drug Enforcement, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Law Enforcement Services, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, the Rapid City Police Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Homeland Security Investigations, and the South Dakota Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. Senior Litigation Counsel Kirk Albertson prosecuted the case. Chasing Hawk was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.