Franklin County Man Pleads Guilty to Possessing Child Exploitation Material

ROANOKE, Va. - A Franklin County man, who possessed thousands of images of child sex abuse material ("CSAM") after previous court-martial convictions for similar behavior, pled guilty today in federal court and faces up to 20 years in prison.

Kevin Michael Robinson, 28, of Wirtz, Virginia, pled guilty today to one count of knowingly possessing CSAM, including images of prepubescent minors and minors under 12 years old.

According to court documents, in June 2018, Robinson pled guilty at a military court-martial to various child sexual exploitation offenses. Upon Robinson's release from prison in June 2025, he began his supervised release term. As required, Robinson had monitoring software installed on his cellphone.

On July 1, 2025, Robinson's probation officer received notice from the monitoring software that Robinson had downloaded CSAM. Several probation officers met Robinson at his home in Wirtz, Virginia, and seized his phone. Robinson admitted to viewing inappropriate material and expressed remorse.

A specially trained probation officer reviewed Robinson's cellphone data and identified 20,200 images and 101 videos of sexually explicit content, including a large amount of CSAM. The CSAM included both real images, as well as computer and AI-generated CSAM images.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Drew O. Inman is prosecuting the case.

The case was brought as part of Operation Relentless Justice, a coordinated enforcement effort to identify, track, and arrest child sex predators. The nationwide crackdown resulted in over 205 child victims being located and the arrests of over 293 child sexual abuse offenders. The coordinated effort was executed over the course of two weeks by all 56 FBI field offices, the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) in the Department's Criminal Division, and U.S. Attorney offices around the country.

Operation Relentless Justice supports Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the 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, visit justice.gov/psc.