SPRINGFIELD, MO—Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a retired Springfield, Mo., police officer was sentenced in federal court today for possessing child pornography.

Steven Robert Magruder, 60, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to four years in federal prison without parole. The court will issue a separate order for Magruder to pay restitution to one of his victims.

Magruder retired as a corporal from the Springfield Police Department in 2005. He worked part-time from 2006 to 2014 as a security officer for Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield and as a bailiff for the Greene County Circuit Court in 2013.

On Oct. 7, 2014, Magruder pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.

A detective with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department identified Magruder’s computer on Jan. 7, 2013, as sharing child pornography over the Internet. The detective downloaded 12 videos of child pornography that Magruder was sharing via a peer-to-peer file-sharing program during a 42-day period in January and February 2013. Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Magruder’s residence and seized his computer, which contained child pornography. A detailed forensic analysis was conducted on Magruder’s computer and indicated that Magruder had been collecting child porn for the past year.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Abram McGull, II. It was investigated by the FBI, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crime Task Force, the Jasper County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department and the Springfield, Mo., Police Department.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”