On December 12, James Ray Nichols, 32, from Louisville, Ky., was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, followed by 25 years of supervised release, and ordered to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to the charge of distribution of child pornography.
According to the court record, beginning in January 2024, Nichols, who lived at his parents’ home in Kentucky, used a social networking application on his phone to discuss having sex with an eight-year-old and three-year-old in conversations with an undercover Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Task Force Officer and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) Detective posing as the children’s mother in the Southern District of Florida.
Between January and July 2024, Nichols distributed multiple videos of child sexual abuse material to the undercover officer.
On July 17, HSI agents executed a search warrant at Nichols’ Kentucky residence, where he was found with a phone that held a cache of child sexual exploitation material. After his arrest, Nichols was transferred to the Southern District of Florida.
At sentencing, Nichols agreed to pay $10,000 restitution to victims of the material he distributed.
