BIRMINGHAM – U.S. District Judge Abdul K. Kallon on Wednesday sentenced a truck driver from Talladega to 55 years in prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for his aggravated sexual abuse of a child under age 12, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
A federal jury convicted RICK LEE EVANS, 43, on Dec. 11, 2015, for the aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
According to evidence introduced at trial, Evans, a former U.S. Army soldier, and his then-wife, a Department of Defense employee, were living in Germany when they were asked to take temporary custody of a five-year-old child whose parents were deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army. Trial evidence showed that from May 2007 to December 2008, while the child lived with Evans, he sexually abused the child on multiple occasions.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Hutzell of the Northern District of Alabama and Trial Attorney Austin M. Berry of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section prosecuted the case. U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division and the FBI’s Birmingham, Alabama, Division investigated the case.
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 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.justice.gov/psc.