AVAA Assessment: Amounts, Mandatory Payment, and Who Qualifies

The AVAA assessment is a mandatory financial penalty that federal courts must impose on every defendant convicted of a child pornography offense under the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018. The amount is capped at $17,000 for possession, $35,000 for trafficking, and $50,000 for production, with each cap adjusted annually for inflation.¹ The money does not go to any individual victim. It flows into a federal fund that pays one-time $35,000 awards to victims whose images were trafficked.²

How the Assessment Differs From Restitution

A defendant convicted of a federal child pornography offense can face two separate financial obligations, and they work differently. Restitution under 18 U.S.C. § 2259 is paid directly to identified victims for their actual losses, with a statutory minimum of $3,000 per victim and a ceiling at the full amount of a victim’s losses. The AVAA amended that framework to use an “aggregate causation standard,” meaning a court orders restitution reflecting a defendant’s relative role in the harm.³

The AVAA assessment under § 2259A is different. It is not restitution and cannot be split up and handed to individual victims. Every dollar must be deposited into the federal fund. The Eighth Circuit made this explicit in United States v. Miller in 2023, after a district court tried to allocate a $50,000 assessment among five victims and other children. The appellate court reversed, holding that AVAA assessments and restitution are distinct and that assessment money belongs in the Reserve.⁴

Assessment Amounts by Offense

The statute sets three ceilings based on the severity of the conviction. All are adjusted annually for inflation under the Consumer Price Index.³

Possession offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4) or § 2252A(a)(5): up to $17,000.
Any other trafficking offense: up to $35,000.
Production offenses: up to $50,000.¹

Payment Priority When a Defendant Pays

Money collected from a defendant is applied in a fixed order. Special assessments under 18 U.S.C. § 3013 come first. Restitution to victims of the defendant’s production or trafficking offenses comes next, followed by the AVAA assessment, then any other court orders, and finally all remaining fines and penalties.¹ Direct victim restitution is paid before any dollar reaches the AVAA fund.

Where the Money Goes

Every AVAA assessment is deposited into the Defined Monetary Assistance Victims Reserve, formerly called the Child Pornography Victims Reserve. The Reserve sits inside the Federal Crime Victims Fund and is administered by the Office for Victims of Crime at the Department of Justice. It can also accept private gifts and donations, and Congress capped its total balance at $10 million.³

Eligible victims receive a one-time payment of $35,000, adjusted for inflation from December 7, 2018. The payment is ordered by a federal court, not by the Department of Justice. If the Reserve cannot cover every outstanding order, it must pay as many orders in full as it can, in the chronological order the orders were issued.⁵ The money is meant to support long-term needs such as therapy, medical care, education, and housing.⁶

Who Qualifies for a Payment

To receive a payment from the Reserve, a person must have been identified as a victim of child sexual abuse material in a federal criminal case, or be an authorized representative of such a victim. A defendant must have been convicted in federal court of trafficking the material in which the victim appears. The victim must not already have received restitution from convicted defendants exceeding the $35,000 threshold (as adjusted for inflation), and only one payment from the Reserve is available per victim. U.S. citizenship or residency is not required.²

How to Apply

The Department of Justice began accepting applications under a final rule published on November 25, 2024, and codified at 28 CFR Part 81 Subpart C.⁷ Processing of applications was active as of January 15, 2025.⁶

Claims can be filed electronically or on paper, one form per victim. The applicant must submit two forms of government-issued identification. Authorized representatives — guardians, court-appointed representatives, or personal representatives of an estate — must provide supporting documents such as court orders or birth certificates. Once a court orders payment, funds are sent by direct bank transfer.²

An attorney is not required. If a victim uses one, fees are capped at 15 percent of the payment. If a victim receives defined monetary assistance and later pursues restitution in a separate case, the amount already received is deducted from the total determined losses.⁸

Mandatory Even When the Defendant Cannot Pay

Courts cannot skip the AVAA assessment on the ground that a defendant is indigent. The Seventh Circuit so held in United States v. Gregory Johnson, decided on March 25, 2025, reading the word “shall” in § 2259A as a “discretionless obligation” to impose some assessment. That is a sharp break from the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act assessment, which applies only to non-indigent defendants and can be waived when a defendant cannot pay.⁹

The amount, however, is not fixed. A sentencing court must consider the factors in 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a) and 3572, including a defendant’s income, earning capacity, and financial resources, and must give a “reasoned and reviewable basis” for the specific figure it chooses, up to the statutory cap.⁹ In Johnson, the district court imposed a $5,000 AVAA assessment while finding the defendant indigent and waiving the fine and the JVTA assessment. The Seventh Circuit vacated the $5,000 because the record offered no explanation for it and the figure appeared borrowed from the JVTA rather than tied to the defendant’s circumstances. The case was remanded for an individualized determination.¹⁰

Why Congress Created the Assessment

Before the AVAA, compensation for child pornography victims ran through restitution alone, and in cases involving widely distributed images it rarely delivered meaningful recovery. Thousands of anonymous possessors each contributed an untraceable fraction of the harm, which made it difficult to tie a victim’s losses to any single defendant.

The Supreme Court addressed that problem in Paroline v. United States, decided April 23, 2014, in a 5–4 opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Court held that restitution under § 2259 was proper “only to the extent the defendant was the proximate cause of the victim’s losses” and endorsed a flexible approach based on “the defendant’s relative role in the causal process.”¹¹ In practice, that discretion often produced small awards or none at all. Congress cited Paroline directly in the AVAA’s findings and built the assessment-and-Reserve system to deliver compensation without requiring proof of any single defendant’s precise share of the harm.¹²

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. § 2259A
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Defined Monetary Assistance Victims Reserve
3
GovInfo. Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018
4
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. United States v. Miller, No. 22-1947
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. § 2259B
6
Office of Justice Programs. DOJ to Accept Applications for Financial Assistance for Eligible Victims
7
eCFR. 28 CFR Part 81 Subpart C
8
GovInfo. 28 CFR Part 81 – Subpart C
9
FindLaw. United States v. Johnson, No. 23-3251
10
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. 2025 Seventh Circuit Update
11
Federalist Society. Paroline v. United States: The Question of Restitution
12
Congress.gov. S.2152 – Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018