Lower Saucon Man Sentenced in Child Porn Case Brought by FBI

A Lower Saucon Township man will spend up to nine years in prison for distributing child pornography and possessing a firearm despite being a convicted felon, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced in a news release earlier this week.

Court records state that 47-year-old Earl Burford was living in the 1900 block of Meadows Road in August of last year when the FBI connected him with a user account on the Kik instant messaging app that was being used to communicate about child pornography and child abuse.

The communications under the account name “freakyfam69” included “sending and receiving images depicting child pornography,” the release said.

According to a September 2024 affidavit in support of an arrest warrant filed by a special agent with the FBI’s Philadelphia Division, Burford’s identity was confirmed using digital evidence that included an IP address registered with a local internet service provider that was tied to the Meadows Road address, an IP address connected to the Lower Saucon address provided by Google and cell phone records that tied Burford to an address on Willow Park Road in Bethlehem Township. A third address connected to Burford via the digital evidence agents cited in the affidavit is on Williams Avenue in Philadelphia.

“FBI Agents conducted surveillance related to (the Meadows Road address) on multiple occasions,” the agent wrote. “They identified one vehicle matching the description of a vehicle registered to Earl Burford, that is, an Infinity QX 50, which was parked near the detached garage…. Based off his Pennsylvania driver’s license photo, agents identified an adult male matching the description of Earl Burford entering the garage.”

The agent said the warrant to search both Burford’s home and his person was executed on Sept. 23, 2024, with Burford being searched in the parking lot of a business on Main Street in Hellertown.

“Agents provided Burford with Miranda warnings and asked him about his use of the freakyfam69 account on Kik,” the affidavit said. “He admitted to being freakyfam69 and to receiving and sharing images of child pornography over Kik. He denied sexually abusing any children and stated that he typically viewed and shared child pornography while he was abusing
methamphetamine.”

According to the news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office, Burford pleaded guilty to distribution of child pornography and possession of a firearm by a felon in May. In addition to the prison sentence handed down to him by U.S. District Judge John M. Gallagher, it said he will serve six years of supervised release and pay $3,000 in restitution.

The release noted that the case was brought as part of a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse called Project Safe Childhood. Launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice and led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (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,” it said.