A former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee who admitted possessing more than 600 images of child sexual abuse material was sentenced Monday morning to five years in federal prison.
Bradford William Simmons, 51, of Mobile, received the 60-month sentence from Chief U.S. District Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock following his April guilty plea to one count of possession of child pornography. Simmons, through his attorney Arthur Madden, did not object to findings from a presentencing report, which was not available in the public docket at the time of sentencing.
The Sentence
The five-year term will be served in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, followed by 15 years of supervised release. Simmons was also ordered to pay $17,500 in restitution and a $100 special assessment.
The judge granted Simmons two days of credit toward the sentence for time he spent in state custody in 2024, and ordered the federal sentence to run concurrently with any sentence yet to be imposed in his pending state criminal case. Simmons was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service following the hearing.
The five-year sentence was the term jointly recommended by Simmons and federal prosecutors in a plea agreement filed earlier this year. In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss five remaining federal charges after sentencing.
What Investigators Found
Simmons admitted in a factual resume that his offense involved more than 600 images of child sexual abuse material and that he used a file shredding program in an attempt to conceal or destroy evidence. Federal investigators found the program had been run repeatedly in March 2024 — including 11 times on March 9 alone.
Simmons, a former hydrologic technician with the USACE Mobile District, was first arrested by Mobile County investigators in June 2024 following an investigation by the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Authorities previously alleged that thousands of images and videos were discovered during the investigation.
He was subsequently indicted in Mobile County Circuit Court in April 2025, and federal prosecutors brought separate charges later that year.
What Happens After Prison
The supervised release terms are stringent. Under the conditions imposed Monday, Simmons will be subject to sex offender registration and restrictions on computer use and contact with minors for 15 years after his release.
Beaverstock also recommended that Simmons be housed in a federal facility as close to home as possible and participate in substance abuse, mental health and sex offender treatment programs while in custody — recommendations that follow Bureau of Prisons policy for offenders with these convictions but which the judge specifically memorialized in the sentencing order.
Restitution of $17,500 will go to victims identified under federal law, which entitles victims of child sexual abuse material to compensation for the documented harms of their exploitation being recorded and distributed.
The State Case Still Pending
The federal case is only half of Simmons’s legal exposure. His state charges in Mobile County Circuit Court remain pending, and a hearing was scheduled for the following week to hear from attorneys on the status of the case ahead of a trial.
Defense lawyers and prosecutors will now have to sort out how the federal conviction and sentence affect the state prosecution. Beaverstock ordered the federal term to run concurrently with any sentence yet to be imposed in the state case — an arrangement that avoids consecutive punishment but leaves the state charges unresolved.
A Wider Pattern
The case is part of a steady stream of child exploitation prosecutions in south Alabama, where the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office ICAC Task Force and federal partners have made digital evidence — file shredders, encrypted drives, peer-to-peer sharing traffic — a central focus. Investigators routinely recover evidence of concealment attempts, and programs designed to destroy files are treated by prosecutors as consciousness of guilt.
Federal sentencing guidelines for possession offenses start lower than production or distribution offenses, which is why a guilty plea to possession alone, with a joint recommendation, produced a five-year term. Judges retain discretion to depart from guideline recommendations, but Beaverstock accepted the parties’ agreed resolution.
Simmons remained in federal custody as his state case moved toward resolution.