Bankston faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and between five years and a lifetime of supervised release, the Justice Department said. He is being detained pending sentencing, the agency said.
Bankston was listed as an airman 1st class at the assignment prior to his most recent posting with the 341st Missile Security Forces Squadron at Malmstrom Air Base in Montana. It was there that investigators first became aware of his online criminal activity in the summer of 2021.
The Great Falls Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Homeland Security and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations were part of the investigation.
The task force was alerted that a suspect in Montana had uploaded videos containing known child sexual abuse material to an account on Twitter, the Justice Department statement said.
The task force also learned that a Snapchat user with a Montana address had posted an image of child pornography. Further investigation linked the accounts to Bankston’s IP address, a numeric designation that identifies its location on the internet.
Bankston admitted to Air Force investigators that he obtained the images and video through a messaging platform and stored the material on a cloud-based site in New Zealand, according to the Justice Department.
He said he received about $6,750 for selling the material to about 25 people, totaling 42 separate transactions. A search of the airman’s electronic devices, social media platforms, bank accounts and cloud-based storage applications uncovered thousands of pictures and videos.
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