October 15, 2014

Nevada Man Pleads Guilty to Receiving Child Pornography, Faces 12 Years in Prison

SPRINGFIELD, MO—Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that Nevada, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to receiving child pornography after he assumed a false online identity as a woman and persuaded a teenage girl in Georgia to send him pornographic images of herself.

Curtis Bowman, 43, of Nevada, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to receiving child pornography over the Internet.

Law enforcement officers in Cobb County, Ga., were contacted by the victim’s mother. She told officers that her 16-year-old daughter, identified as ”Jane Doe,” had been engaged in sexually explicit e-mail communications with an individual identifying herself as “Amanda Toben.” Jane Doe confirmed that she met “Amanda Toben,” whom she believed was a female resident of Missouri, in an online chat room sometime in January 2014. They began exchanging e-mails and within a matter of days, the e-mail exchanges became sexual in nature. Jane Doe ultimately sent a number of images depicting herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct to “Toben.”

Georgia law enforcement officers identified Bowman and on Friday, March 7, 2014, local law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Bowman’s residence, where he was arrested. Investigators discovered a number of sexually explicit images of Jane Doe on Bowman’s computer.

Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, the court will sentence Bowman to 12 years in federal prison without parole and may also order Bowman to pay restitution to the victim. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kelleher. It was investigated by the Vernon County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the FBI and the Cobb County, Ga., 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.”