Vince Harjo, 36, of Glenpool, was sentenced last week to 48 months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for possession of child sexual exploitation material. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge John F. Heil III in the Eastern District of Oklahoma after Harjo’s guilty plea on Sept. 11, 2023, to possessing sexually explicit material involving a minor.
The case stems from an investigation initiated on Feb. 4, 2023, when officers responded to an incident in Okmulgee.
During the response, law enforcement officials discovered explicit images involving a child on Harjo’s cell phone. The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Muscogee Nation Lighthorse Police Department.
This case was prosecuted as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative, a national program established in 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. Through a collaboration between U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood coordinates federal, state, and local resources to arrest, prosecute and sentence individuals involved in these crimes while working to identify and rescue victims.
Federal authorities stress that child exploitation is a nationwide epidemic. “Project Safe Childhood allows us to take coordinated, comprehensive steps to remove these materials from our communities and protect vulnerable children from future harm,” stated Joshua Satter, Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, who represented the United States in the case.
The Department of Justice encourages anyone with information about child exploitation to report it immediately. Tips can be submitted through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) Cyber-Tipline at www.cybertipline.com or by calling the NCMEC at 1-800-8435678. Additionally, the FBI can be reached at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800225-5324), and Homeland Security Investigations at 877-4-HSI-TIP.
