Coweta County, Georgia (August 26th, 2025) – Defendant Larry Nelson Gasaway appeared in a courtroom this morning at the US District Courthouse in Newnan, GA where he waived his right to prosecution by indictment and entered a binding guilty plea regarding a sole count. The Court accepted the plea agreement and set a date and time for sentencing. After an oral motion by the Government’s counsel, the Court remanded Gasaway into the custody of the US Marshals pending his sentencing hearing.
For more information, including details on the investigation, court case, and sentencing, please visit our full coverage for Larry Nelson Gasaway.
Background
The investigation into Larry Nelson Gasaway started on April 13th, 2025 when Gasaway was re-entering the country through Miami and was selected for a secondary inspection during the customs process. During an inspection of his phone agents with Customs and Border Protection ( CPB ) located images depicting sexual material of a minor.
CPB contacted Homeland Security Investigations’ ( HSI ) Miami Office who seized Gasaway’s phone and extracted it’s data. HSI Miami provided the data to HSI Atlanta who started an investigation and on April 16th conducted a search warrant of the minor’s residence in which several Ring cameras, installed by Gasaway, were located in both the minor’s bathroom and bedroom. HSI Atlanta was able to compel Ring to produce account information associated with the cameras. The account details matched information known to belong to Gasaway.
HSI Atlanta was able to pour through the content of Gasaway’s seized phone. Agents located a number of videos of the victim made by recording streamed video from the hidden cameras located during the search warrant. At least one of the videos showed a timestamp of February of 2025. On April 29th, 2025, HSI Atlanta forensically interviewed the minor female victim. The victim confirmed that she was the individual depicted in the videos. She also stated that Gasaway had purchased her sexual related items and that she and Gasaway had sexually explicit conversations.
Gasaway was arrested on April 30th, 2025 after the court found probable cause to do so. On the same day US Attorney Teddy Hertzberg submitted a Motion for Detention to the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia requesting that Gasaway be held in jail until a hearing could be held regarding bond. At the May 1st bond hearing the Court denied the Government’s request to deny bond and Gasaway was released on a $20,000 bond that included a plethora of conditions including a GPS monitor.
Court Proceedings
Under Federal law a Defendant must be formally charged by indictment or information within 30 days of their arrest unless an extension is granted by the Court.
On May 2nd, 2025, the US Attorney and Defense counsel asked the Court for a Consent Motion to extend that deadline citing active discussions between the sides in hopes of reaching a pre-indictment resolution to the case. On May 6th the Court granted the Consent Motion extending the deadline to end of day on July 29th, 2025.
On July 15th, both sides again asked the Court to further extend the deadline as talks continued in hopes of a pre-indictment resolution. On July 17th, the Court again granted the extension setting the deadline as end of day on August 28th.
Criminal Information
On August 26th, 2025, at a hearing held before the Honorable Leigh Martin May at the US District Courthouse in Newnan, Gasaway entered a binding guilty plea as the result of a plea agreement agreed to by both Gasaway and the Government’s counsel.
During the hearing, Gasaway appeared in court and waived his right to prosecution by indictment and consenting the proceeding may be by information instead. The following is the Government’s accusation contained in that [ criminal ] information.
On or about April 18, 2023, in the Northern District of Georgia, the defendant, LARRY GASAWAY, did knowingly possess matter that contained at least one visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 2256(2), said depiction having been (a) produced using a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and (b) shipped and transported in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce, by any means, including by computer, all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2252(a)(4)(B) and 2252(b)(2).
The Sole Charge
As part of the Plea Agreement, Gasaway plead guilty to the following charge.
- Possession of a Visual Depiction of a Minor Engaging in Sexually Explicit Conduct ( 18 U.S. Code § 2256(2) )
According to 18 U.S. Code § 2252(b)(2), anyone found guilty of the above charge faces the following penalties.¹
- … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both, …
¹ Certain factors including if the age of the victim is 12 or below or if the Defendant has been found guilty in a prior case of a host of sexual related charges, neither of which appear to apply in this case, increase the sentence to no less than 10 years and no more than 20 years.
The Plea Agreement
Binding Plea
The Plea Agreement entered into by Gasaway and the Government is what’s known as a ” Binding Plea, ” meaning that this Sentencing Recommendation contained within the Plea would bind the Court to impose that particular custodial sentence if the Court accepts the Plea Agreement. If the Court hadn’t accepted the Plea Agreement as binding Gasaway would have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.
The Court accepted the Plea Agreement during the August 26th hearing, binding both parties to the below sentencing recommendations.
Binding Sentencing Recommendation
The Defendant and Government expressly recommend that the Court should impose a sentence of 96 months ( 7.5 years ) of imprisonment as the appropriate total custodial sentence in this case.
The Government also agreed to recommend that Gasaway received an offense level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility to the maximum extent authorized by the guideline. They however reserve the right to rescind this recommendation if at any point prior to sentencing Gasaway engages in any conduct inconsistent with accepting responsibility.
The below text regarding offense level adjustment refers to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which use a point system that represents criminal history, severity of the charge, and a host of other things to come up with a departure from the sentence. Depending on the points this can add or remove time from the sentence. For more information regarding this please see United States Sentencing Commission.
The Government also agreed to recommend that Gasaway received an offense level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility to the maximum extent authorized by the guideline. They however reserve the right to rescind this recommendation if at any point prior to sentencing Gasaway engages in any conduct inconsistent with accepting responsibility. This recommendation would see a downward departure from the 96 month starting point above.
The Government will recommend a term of supervised release in accordance with the applicable statutory penalties. In this case that would be a term of 5 years to Life.
Gasaway will be required to register as a sex offender upon release.
Sentencing Hearing
Gasaway’s Sentencing Hearing has been set for Monday, November 24th, 2025, at 10 AM. The hearing will be held at the Federal Building in downtown Newnan.
At the sentencing hearing the Judge will apply all sentencing guidelines to the agreed upon recommendations within the Plea Agreement and hand down a final sentence.