Former foreign service officer sentenced for child porn

Greenbelt, MD —  A Frederick, Maryland man was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for sexually abused at least 5 minors to produce child pornography while stationed overseas as a foreign service officer.

Steven Hadley Hassan, age 52, will serve 40 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release. Hassan has been detained since his arrest in June  of 2018.

Starting October 2010 and continuing until mid-2013, Hassan admitted that he sexually abused a child in government housing in the Philippines and South Africa, where Hassan was stationed in connection with his work as a foreign service officer for the U.S. State Department.

During the time Hassan was stationed in the Philippines he also sexually abused two prepubescent minor sisters and produced images of the abuse.  Hassan met the sisters, aged seven and 11, when he offered them food from a local restaurant near where they lived.  Hassan then took them to a local hotel and sexually abused them, photographing the abuse. He also abused two other minor girls at a Manila hotel on at least three occasions.

Sometime after November 2015, Hassan transported his camera and the secure digital (SD) memory card within it, which contained the photos documenting the sexual abuse of the minor girls, back to the United States.  Hassan eventually deleted the images of the child pornography he produced from the SD card.

From October 2014 through March 2018, Hassan, under a number of different usernames, used an online file-sharing network, to distribute child pornography, including images documenting the sexual abuse of prepubescent minors, as well as to engage in online chats. 

On January 22, 2018, an undercover investigator downloaded thousands of depictions of child pornography and child erotica from the “shared folder” of the file-sharing program that Hassan made available for download.  Search warrants were subsequently obtained for Hassan’s residence in Frederick.  Law enforcement seized a laptop computer, camera, and various digital media.

An HSI computer forensics analyst forensically examined the digital evidence and discovered thousands of images of child pornography, including the images that depict Hassan, whose face is visible in some of the images, sexually abusing the girls.

“Steven Hassan preyed on vulnerable young girls, including foreign nationals, while representing the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur. “This sentence demonstrates that we will find and bring to justice those who victimize children.”