Charlottesville Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Child Exploitation Offenses

RICHMOND, VA — Attorney General Jason Miyares announced that Charlottesville resident Avery Wood, 54, was sentenced on February 14 to 40 years, 15 years of which is active incarceration, for Use of a Communications System to Solicit a Minor and Distribution of Child Pornography in Warren County Circuit Court.

Upon his release, Wood will be placed on supervised probation and must register as a sex offender. He has been ordered not to have contact with minors, and he is not allowed Internet access unless approved and monitored by his probation officer. 

“I am proud of my team for successfully prosecuting this case. The Office of the Attorney General has zero tolerance for these kinds of crimes, and we will continue to collaborate with our law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate and prosecute these offenders,” said Attorney General Jason Miyares. 

In November 2022, a detective with the Front Royal Police Department conducting an undercover operation online contacted the Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) Computer Crimes Section after Wood began soliciting whom he believed to be a 13-year-old girl for sexually explicit material and sent child pornography videos and explicit images of himself to the undercover detective. 

During the investigation, Wood traveled to a hotel in Front Royal to meet with the “minor,” where he was subsequently arrested. The defendant admitted to sending explicit images of himself and proposing sexual acts with the minor. A forensic examination of the defendant’s cell phone revealed the chats with the undercover detective and child pornography files.

The case was investigated by the Front Royal Police Department, as part of the Northern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and Attorney General Miyares’ Computer Crimes Section. Assistant Attorney General Cynthia Paoletta prosecuted the case on behalf of the Commonwealth. 

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