The United States Department of Justice says a Blount County is sentenced on child pornography charges.

Maryville Police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on August 7, 2023 reporting that someone, later identified as 26-year-old Julian Gerdeman, had uploaded child pornography to a Google storage drive.

During the investigation, the DOJ said the IP address came back to the address of Gerdeman’s mother and that he was living in an unattached garage at the time of the tip.

Law enforcement executed a search warrant on August 21st and found 4,324 images of child pornography that Gerdeman had received on various dates.

On April 16, Gerdeman entered a plea agreement for two counts of receipt of Maryville Police and one count of possession of and access with intent to view child pornography and was sentenced to 189 months behind bars. After he is released, the DOJ said he will be on lifetime supervised release and will be required to register with the state’s sex offender registries and comply with special sex offender conditions.

Gerdeman’s mother, Diane Lashmit, was charged with tampering with proceedings and accessory after the fact.

Lashmit is accused of tampering with evidence in Gerdeman’s case. Her trial is now set to begin on July 15th.