Child Sexual Abuse Material Prosecutions

CBS News reports that Timothy Parsons, a longtime Justice Department employee who has worked as a legal staffer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., has been arrested and charged in a federal child pornography case in Maryland. An FBI task force searched his Bethesda home on Monday, seizing multiple devices, and an affidavit says Parsons admitted receiving several videos and two images of child sexual abuse material in February 2019 from another person and replying with sexually explicit comments, including, “That is so hot.” Investigators say his case was uncovered during a 2025 probe of former Children’s National Medical Center child psychotherapist Victor Blythe, noting that the material sent to Parsons matches a suspected child exploiter whose case details align with Blythe’s pending prosecution. A DOJ spokesperson said Parsons has been placed on leave and that “appropriate disciplinary action will be taken,” while FBI agents reported no child abuse material was found in an initial on‑site preview of his devices, with full forensic analysis still pending. Parsons has been assigned a federal public defender and is slated to make his first court appearance Friday in Greenbelt, underscoring that even veteran staff inside federal prosecutors’ offices can themselves become criminal defendants in child‑exploitation cases.