News Releases

Minnesota foster care provider sentenced to 25 years for child pornography

MINNEAPOLIS - A former foster care provider and special education teacher in the St. Paul Public School District was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for producing and possessing child pornography. The sentence resulted from an investigation conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Gregg Alan Larsen, 49, of Minneapolis, was sentenced in a federal court in Minneapolis on one count of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Larsen was indicted in May and pleaded guilty in July.

In his plea agreement, Larsen admitted to abusing a position of trust by creating pornography of the children in his care. In April of 2006, he took digital photographs of one minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The child was younger than 12 years of age at the time. Larsen also admitted that he intended to distribute those images via the Internet.

From June through July of 2006, Larsen produced digital pornographic photographs of a second child, also younger than 12 years of age, again with the intent to distribute the photos through the Internet. On July 1, 2009, Larsen admittedly possessed eight video files containing child pornography, as well as more than 600 images of child pornography. Those items were stored on Larsen's home computer.

Assisting ICE HSI in the investigation was the Minnesota Cyber Crime Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service.

This investigation is part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.