The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a 45-year-old Tobyhanna man pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton, to producing child pornography.

According to U.S. Attorney Peter Smith, the defendant, Robert Ferraro, admitted to using and persuading a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing images of such conduct. Ferraro admitted to committing the crime between August 2013 and January 2015.Ferraro was indicted by a federal grand jury in March 2015, as a result of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the Pennsylvania State Police, and the Monroe County District Attorney's Office.Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard P. Conaboy will impose sentence in the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa is prosecuting the case.This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit

www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit

www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."