ATLANTA, Ga. — Federal Bureau of Prisons investigators and the FBI Atlanta Field Office say four men already serving time for child sex crimes kept trading illicit files inside the Federal Correctional Institution in Atlanta. Northern District of Georgia prosecutors under U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg have charged them with new counts.
Former Denver physician Justin Neisler appeared in federal court Wednesday on two possession counts. He is already serving a 23-year term for producing child sexual abuse material. Prosecutors said a grand jury named him on Oct. 27 after agents found a smuggled phone tucked under his pillow with prohibited files on it.
Over the summer, the same probe produced indictments against fellow prisoners at the Atlanta facility — Harold Nuckols, Jacob Breslin and Dustin Bishop — on receipt, possession and distribution counts tied to the same scheme.
The inquiry started in March 2026 when Bureau of Prisons staff found inmates sharing files inside the Atlanta lockup. Prosecutors allege Bishop and at least one other prisoner used smuggled phones to pull dark-web material onto memory cards pulled from MP3 players, then ran prints on a library copier, sometimes on the reverse side of religious pages, and sold those sheets to other inmates that included Breslin. Agents also say they sold cartoon-style obscenity involving children to inmates that included Nuckols.
About 450 images and videos were taken into evidence during the search, prosecutors said. Hertzberg said smuggled phones endanger the public and that his office will press for added prison time when inmates commit new crimes while locked up.
Bishop, 38, of Raleigh, N.C., was already serving 10 years for receiving the material and answered a distribution charge in late August. Breslin, 34, of Merritt Island, Fla., was serving 15 years and was arraigned in early August. Nuckols, 29, of Henrico, Va., was serving more than four years and faces an obscenity-related count from a late-July indictment that also named Breslin.
If convicted, Neisler and Nuckols face a floor of 10 years without parole; Bishop and Breslin face a floor of 15. Any new term can run after the sentences they already serve. Line prosecutor Matthew R. LaGrone is handling the cases for Hertzberg’s office.
Section: More Atlanta GA crime news
Filed under: Atlanta GA Crime News
