Liberty Man Sentenced for Child Pornography

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Timothy A. Garrison, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Liberty, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for attempting to distribute child pornography over the internet.

Mark Anthony Barrett, 60, of Liberty, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to eight years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Barrett to 15 years of supervised release following incarceration, and ordered Barrett to pay $5,000 in restitution to one of the victims portrayed in his collection of child pornography (or $3,000 in restitution if paid within 30 days).

On Oct. 6, 2017, Barrett pleaded guilty to attempting to distribute child pornography over the internet. Barrett admitted that he used peer-to-peer file-sharing software to download child pornography from the Internet, which was also then made available to others on the sharing network. Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at his residence and seized a desktop computer, a laptop computer and five hard drives.

Barrett admitted to viewing child pornography for more than two years. Investigators found 272 images and 76 video files of child pornography (one of which was particularly violent and involved a female toddler) on a hard drive that had been removed from Barrett’s desktop computer. The majority of the images appeared to be of prepubescent females being sexually abused; the age of the victims ranged from toddler to prepubescent.
 
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine A. Connelly. It was investigated by the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department and the FBI.

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."