Opinion ID: 720552
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Completion of the Offense

Text: 13 Sirois argues that § 2251(a) is violated as soon as a minor is transported across state lines and that subsequent actions (such as taking pictures) therefore cannot give rise to aiding and abetting liability. He compares the statute to 18 U.S.C. § 2421 (a latter-day version of the Mann Act), which prohibits interstate transportation of any person in order to engage that person in prostitution. A Mann Act offense is completed once a prostitute crosses state lines. See Wilson v. United States, 232 U.S. 563, 571, 34 S.Ct. 347, 350, 58 L.Ed. 728 (1914) (finding a violation of the Mann Act even though the defendants, Chicago pimps, refused to accept women who had been transported from Wisconsin, because the offense is complete when 'any such woman or girl shall be transported in interstate or foreign commerce....' ). Given the similarity between the two statutes, Sirois argues that the same should be true of § 2251(a). Compare § 2251(a) (punishing [a]ny person who ... transports any minor in interstate or foreign commerce ... with the intent that such minor engage in sexual activity that will be photographed) with § 2421 (punishing [w]hoever knowingly transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce ... with intent that such individual engage in ... any [illegal] sexual activity). He further argues that his alleged role did not directly involve the transportation, but only the subsequent photographing. If the offense is completed upon transportation, then, Sirois contends, he cannot be held liable for helping Booth to violate § 2251(a). 14 As the government points out, however, § 2251(a) contains a further element that § 2421 does not: Either the child pornography itself must cross state lines, or the defendant must know or have reason to know that the pornography will cross state lines. 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (penalizing pornographer if such person knows or has reason to know that [child pornography] will be transported in interstate or foreign commerce or mailed, or if such visual depiction has actually been transported in interstate or foreign commerce or mailed). Unlike the Mann Act, a violation of § 2251(a) that is based on the actual transportation of child pornography across state lines cannot be complete until the pornography is so transported. The jury was entitled to find Sirois guilty of aiding and abetting Booth's violation of § 2251(a) if it found that he helped to create the visual depictions of the illicit sexual conduct that were subsequently transported. 15 We do not hold, of course, that all violations of § 2251(a) remain inchoate until the pornography actually crosses state lines. To the contrary, the statute requires either that the pornography cross state lines or that the defendant know or have reason to know that pornography will do so. In the present case, where the indictment alleged that the photographs had actually been transported, the crime was ongoing until the photographs were carried back to Connecticut. We express no opinion as to whether the same would hold true if, in a different case, a violation of § 2251(a) were premised solely on a defendant's intent to transport photographs. 16