MADISON, Wis. — A former county prosecutor from Neenah, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for distributing child pornography, U.S. Attorney Chadwick M. Elgersma announced.
Adam J. Westbrook, 35, received the sentence from Chief U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson, who also imposed 20 years of supervised release. Westbrook pleaded guilty to the charge on Sept. 16, 2024. The case originated when law enforcement arrested a man in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, in early February 2024 for various sex crimes and found videos on his phone showing a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct — videos that evidence showed Westbrook had sent him.
Judge Peterson reviewed a letter Westbrook submitted before sentencing and found it contained “a mix of self-reflection and self-deception.” Peterson said Westbrook “demonstrated an acute awareness of the risk he posed” but that “his self-deception made him an enormous risk to public safety.”
Between his guilty plea and sentencing, Westbrook attempted to withdraw his plea and filed a motion challenging the legality of the indictment. Judge Peterson found Westbrook’s actions “inconsistent with accepting responsibility for his crime,” which Peterson concluded “made Westbrook more dangerous.”
The investigation was conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Neenah, Lake Delton, and Kenosha Police Departments, with assistance from the UK National Crime Agency. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Louis Glinzak and Elizabeth Altman prosecuted the case.
The case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative that “marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.” Westbrook’s 20-year term of supervised release will begin upon his release from federal prison.