A north Alabama man was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to stalking and extorting a woman and making child pornography, prosecutors said.

Donald Wayne Carmody, 29, of New Hope, pleaded guilty in December to cyberstalking, extortion, and production of child pornography.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Liles Burke sentenced Carmody to 480 months — or 40 years — in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Prim F. Escalona and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples.

The convictions will require Carmody to register as a sex offender in accordance with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

According to the plea agreement, Carmody used anonymous text messages to threaten to release pictures of the victim on the internet if she did not send him intimate photographs.

Carmody also obtained the victim’s login credentials for her social media accounts and accessed their contents.

After Carmody was arrested on cyberstalking and extortion charges for this conduct, investigators discovered a USB thumb drive belonging to him that contained images of child pornography involving two victims under the age of twelve.

The FBI’s Video Forensic Analysis Unit compared the images from the thumb drive, which showed a person’s hand, to pictures of Carmody’s hands taken during the investigation.

The FBI unit identified similar class and distinguishing characteristics between the images, demonstrating that the hand in the images on the thumb drive belonged to Carmody.

The FBI investigated the case with help from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John M. Hundscheid prosecuted the case.

Anyone who suspects or becomes aware of possible sexual exploitation of a child was asked to contact law enforcement.

To alert the FBI Birmingham Office, call 205-326-6166. Reports may also be filed with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) or online at www.cybertipline.org.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Led by U.S. attorneys’ offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet and to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

For more resources on cybercrime, visit www.ic3.gov.