A Kalona man has been sentenced in federal court to 25 years in prison for possession of child pornography.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge John A. Jarvey sentenced 22-year-old Jackson Yaro Young Tuesday, and ordered Young to serve 10 years of supervised release after the prison sentence and pay $600 to the Crime Victims’ Fund. The investigation of Young began in March of 2019 when the Washington County Probation Office received information that Young had been interacting with a minor in public. Young was on probation for a sexual abuse conviction from Linn County at the time. Following further investigation, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office seized two phones from Young, which revealed images and videos of child pornography, as well as sexually explicit communication between Young and multiple minors.

The matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative, which began in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children.