PORTLAND – A 28-year-old Rockland woman is awaiting sentencing after she pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court July 31 to a count of distribution of child pornography.

Bianca Van Valkenburg, agreed to a plea agreement entered in federal court July 27. Another charge of sexual exploitation of a minor was dismissed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The stipulations of the plea agreement for the guilty plea of the distribution of child pornography include a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum sentence of 20 years and at least five years of supervised release.

Van Valkenburg had been scheduled to go to trial on Aug. 1.

According to the documents filed in federal court, the investigation began in August 2020 when detectives with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, recovered a cellphone from a person and discovered a video showing an adult sexually touching a male infant.

In one of the videos, law enforcement officers were able to hear audio consistent with a location in Rockland. In October 2020, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Van Valkenburg’s home in Rockland. During the course of executing the warrant, officers spoke with the woman who admitted that she sent the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in videos to a person in Florida between June 2018 and November 2018, according to court documents.

Police said that Van Valkenburg used an iPhone cellular telephone and the Kik platform, to distribute the CSAM.

A sentencing date has not been scheduled as of Aug. 14.

Rockland police said in a post on their Facebook page Aug. 1 that the investigation and arrest of Van Valkenburg was “great work and team effort by the Hillsborough County (FL) Sheriff’s Office, Rockland Police Department, Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit, Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney's Office.”

Reach Sarah Shepherd at news@penbaypilot.com