BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A 35-year-old Birmingham man will spend 55 years in federal prison for producing child sexual abuse material involving a teenage girl, the office of U.S. Attorney Phillip Williams Jr. announced Wednesday.
Robert Lee Ford Jr. admitted to two counts of sexual exploitation, and he did so only after jury selection for his trial was already underway. A federal judge then imposed a sentence of 660 months.
Investigators traced the case to January 2025. That month the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office sent a deputy to Children’s of Alabama after a report that a child had been assaulted, and the mother of the 14-year-old girl named Ford as the person who hurt her daughter, according to the plea agreement.
With help from the FBI, deputies searched Ford’s apartment and took him into custody on state charges. The FBI kept digging and served federal search warrants on his online accounts, where agents found abuse videos Ford had made of the girl on several dates from December 2024 into January 2025.
Williams called child exploitation a horrific crime and said the sentence ensures Ford stays locked up for whatever years he has left. He said his office will keep working with law enforcement partners to find and hold accountable anyone who preys on children.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI handled the investigation. The plea agreement, reached after jurors were already being picked, lays out how the case grew from a single hospital call into a federal review of the man’s online accounts.
Section: More Birmingham AL crime news
Filed under: Birmingham AL Crime News
