Former Army master sergeant sentenced to 76 years in prison for child pornography

A man who used to serve as an Army master sergeant was sentenced Friday to 76 years in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for the distribution and receipt of child pornography.

Joshua Glardon, 41, was a first sergeant within the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, which is now known as Fort Liberty.

In July 2021, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Breau of Investigation investigated Glardon.

The investigation started when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received three CyberTips from Kik social media that one of its users had uploaded child sexual abuse material on multiple days. The IP address used to upload the images belonged to Glardon, who lived in Fayetteville.

Two of the images appeared to be homemade, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Authorities seized Glardon’s digital devices after law enforcement got a search warrant.

Law enforcement found thousands of images of child sexual abuse material on his phone.

Officers were able to identify the child through chat messages Glardon had with a woman. When law enforcement officers learned the woman had access to the child, they searched her home.

A forensic analysis of the woman's digital devices revealed chat conversations the she and Glardon discussed the sexual abuse of the child.

The woman was sentenced in June to 30 years imprisonment.

Glardon would then distribute the child’s images over the internet where he encouraged others to further share the images, the Justice Department said. Law enforcement found nearly 50 conversations wherein Glardon had shared the child’s image.