November 2nd 2024

Was residing in a state residential facility and used an employee’s phone to view and download child pornography

A man who received child pornography over the internet while in a residential facility for a prior child pornography charge was sentenced October 31, 2024, to 15 years in federal prison.

Brady David Salow, age 27, from Vinton, Iowa, received the prison term after an April 25, 2024 guilty plea to one count of receiving child pornography.

In a plea agreement, Salow admitted that he was convicted of four counts of possession of a depiction of a minor in a sex act in Dubuque County in 2019.  As a condition of his sentence in that case, he was residing at a residential facility in Vinton in 2023.  Per the rules of the facility, Salow was not permitted to have access to a phone or a computer.  Beginning in the summer of 2023, however, Salow repeatedly persuaded an employee at the facility to loan him her cellular phone under the pretense that he was going to use it for either looking up photos of celebrities or to listen to music.  By at least August 2023, Salow began receiving and downloading child pornography to the employee’s phone without the employee’s knowledge, saving downloaded images to a hidden folder on the phone.  In October 2023, a fellow resident alerted staff that Salow had been using a phone, and the staff member turned over her phone for examination.  A forensic examination of the phone revealed child pornography, and Salow admitted that he had downloaded child pornography to the phone.  Information presented at the sentencing hearing showed that authorities seized multiple notebooks authored by Salow containing lists of what he termed “sex jobs,” “child sex locations,” and “kid sex opportunities.” 

At the sentencing hearing, the Judge noted that Salow was “highly likely to reoffend” based on his history of possessing child pornography, his history of sexually abusing another individual, and the “clever” and “calculated” manner in which he committed this crime.

Salow was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.  Salow was sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment.  He was ordered to make $9,000 in restitution.  He must also serve a 35-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.