Etowah county man indicted by federal grand jury

Victor Gray Dingler

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted two men in unrelated child exploitation cases that both involved production of child pornography.

A seven-count indictment charged an Etowah County man, 33 year old Victor Gray Dingler,  with producing child pornography between 2008 and 2014, and with possessing child pornography depicting children younger than 12. Some of the child pornography produced involved a 3-year-old, according to the indictment.

Each production of child pornography charge against Dingler carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to federal court documents, the investigation began in March 2013, when Homeland Security Investigators in Birmingham received a series of images depicting the sexual molestation of a young girl by an adult man. The images originated from a website located by Danish National Police. One of the images depicted a University of Alabama blanket.

In September, HSI received a call from representatives of the state Department of Education, alerting them it was possible the girl in the photographs had been located.

HSI authorities and Etowah County deputies went to an Etowah County elementary school and identified a 7-year-old child there as the same one in the photos, using facial features, hair and eye color and dental characteristics. The girl said she was the one in the photos and she identified the man in the photos.