Citrus Springs man sentenced to 30 years for producing child sex abuse material; co-defendent yet to be sentenced

U.S. Attorney's Office
Middle District of Florida
Thursday, September 14, 2023

Ocala, Florida - Senior U.S. District Judge John Antoon, II has sentenced 31 year-old Dustin Shane Sandiford, of Citrus Springs, Florida to serve 30 years in federal prison for production of child sex abuse material. Sandiford had pleaded guilty on September 3, 2021.

According to court documents and testimony, agents seized a cellphone from Sandiford on December 2, 2020. The phone contained a cloud storage application tied to accounts Sandiford had used to hoard more than 17,000 images and videos of child sex abuse. Further investigation revealed that Sandiford had enlisted another Citrus County resident to create child sex abuse images of an underaged relative and then send the images to Sandiford. This material was also found on one of Sandiford’s cloud storage accounts.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney William S. Hamilton.

Co-defendent Ashley Renea Hilligoss, 37, also of Citrus Springs, Florida, has pleaded guilty to producing photos depicting a minor child being sexually abused. She faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a potential life term of supervised release. A sentencing date has not yet been set. Hilligoss had been indicted on June 22, 2021.

According to court documents, Hilligoss took sexually explicit photographs of a minor female and sent them to Sandiford using the internet. FBI agents later searched an encrypted online file storage account belonging to the receiving individual and recovered copies of these photos. When interviewed by law enforcement, Hilligoss admitted to taking and sending the photographs of the child.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ocala Resident Agency. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney William S. Hamilton.

Both cases were brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.