Two Sunset residents have been sentenced to years in federal prison for child pornography convictions.
Dustin Patrick Wyble, 37, was sentenced in federal court today; Katie-Sue Fory Walz, 33, was sentenced in April. Both entered guilty pleas last year, court records indicate.
Wyble was sentenced to 20 years and Walz was sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by 15 years of supervised release and mandatory sex offender registration.
According to evidence presented to the court, Wyble began communicating through the internet chat application, KIK, with an undercover agent in February 2020. During these chats, Wyble provided images of a prepubescent child exposing their private parts in the image. Through their investigative efforts, law enforcement agents were able to determine where Wyble lived and went to his residence to speak with him.
Wyble eventually admitted to using KIK in order to send images of child pornography to other users. A search warrant was obtained for Wyble’s residence and agents seized several electronic devices that Wyble admitted were used to send images through the KIK application. A forensic examination of the devices revealed that Wyble used the devices to store numerous child pornographic images and used his KIK account to administer group chats to share child pornographic images among the group’s users.
The investigation also revealed that Wyble and Walz produced some of the images recovered. According to court documents, Walz was Wyble's girlfriend. The images involved children younger than five years old, records state.
The case was investigated by federal, state and parish law enforcement and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys
Myers P. Namie and Robert C. Abendroth.
