A 30-year-old Edina man was sentenced yesterday in federal court to 24 months in prison on one count of possession of child pornography.

United States District Court Judge John Tunheim also sentenced Aaron Solzenus Kahmann to 15 years of supervised release May 28 in Minneapolis. Kahmann was indicted in November 2006, and pleaded guilty on Oct. 1, 2007.

According to his plea agreement, Kahmann knowingly possessed material that contained images of child pornography in March 2006, including 225 movie files. All of these images were found on his computer.

This case was the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Minneapolis Police Department, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tracy Braun and Lisa D. Kirkpatrick.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a national initiative that encourages the use of multi-jurisdictional task forces to investigate and prosecute cases that involve the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet. PSC urges that law enforcement efforts be complemented by community-wide campaigns to assist victims of exploitation and to educate parents, other adults, and children about Internet safety.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one in 33 children receives an unwanted sexual solicitation online each year. One in four children experiences unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet each year. And, more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the Internet every week. Moreover, recent research conducted by the Federal Bureau of Prisons indicates a strong correlation between possessing or distributing child pornography and committing sexual-contact crimes against children.