Former Knoxville Police Officer Sentenced For Child Pornography
Saturday, June 7, 2025, 9:15 A.M. ET. 2 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,
KNOXVILLE, TN.- A 48-year-old former Knoxville Police Officer will be spending the next 25 years in federal prison after he was sentenced on Thursday for sexually exploiting a child and receiving digital images and video files of the sexual exploitation and abuse of a Virginia child.
According to U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton, III, on Thursday, June 5, 2025, Dan Roark, 48, of Knoxville, Tennessee, appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Katherine A. Crytzer to 300 months in federal prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release for his previously entered guilty plea to federal child pornography offenses.
Roark previously appeared in Federal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, and pleaded guilty to a federal indictment charging one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Child; and one count of Receipt of Child Pornography. In addition to the term of imprisonment, Roark will be required to register as a sex offender in the national database and comply with special sex offender restraints during his lifetime of supervised release.
According To Court Documents
According to the charging information unsealed in the federal indictment, in early October 2023, the Scott County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Department received an anonymous tip that a juvenile girl, identified as “JV,” was sending child pornography through the internet to other child pornography internet users. Following tracking the IP address, Sheriff’s Investigators obtained and executed a court-authorized search warrant for the child’s mother’s cellular phone.
During a forensic examination of the cell phone, Sheriff’s Investigators uncovered digital images and video files of the child, as well as a text message between “JV’s” mother and Roark while he was employed as a Law Enforcement Officer with the Knoxville Police Department. In the text message communication, Roark demanded that the “JV’s” mother send him sexually explicit digital images and video files of “JV.” The child’s mother complied with Roark’s demand and created and sent the digital images and video files to him.
