Youth Coach Sentenced to Prison for Receiving Child Sexual Abuse Material

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Nathaniel Willard Byrd, 38, a youth coach from Hudson, N.C., was sentenced to 121 months in prison today for receiving child sexual abuse material (CSAM), announced Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. In addition to the prison term imposed, Byrd will serve 30 years of supervised release. “Of all people who should not be fueling the trade of videos depicting the torture of children, a youth coach should be at the top of the list,” said U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson. “We will be vigilant to prosecute those that harm our children, particularly those we entrust with their care.” According to court documents and the sentencing hearing, law enforcement determined that an internet user, later identified as Byrd, was storing CSAM to a cloud-based account. Some of the CSAM included videos depicting children between two and 12 years old engaged in sex acts, including the torture of an 18-month-old child. On October 30, 2024, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Byrd’s residence and seized his cellphone. During an interview with investigators, Byrd admitted that he downloaded CSAM. A forensic review of the cellphone revealed that the phone contained the BitTorrent app, a peer-to-peer file-sharing application, and that Byrd possessed more than 1,300 files depicting the sexual abuse of children, 278 of which were videos. Some of the CSAM had been downloaded using the BitTorrent app. In December 2025, Byrd pleaded guilty to receiving CSAM. He is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation to a federal facility. In making the announcement, U.S. Attorney Ferguson thanked Homeland Security Investigations, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Boone Police Department, and the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office for their work on this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Spaugh of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. 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. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc .