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Press Release

Former Airline Pilot from Kenosha County Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for Attempted Sexual Exploitation of a Minor

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Wisconsin

Acting United States Attorney Richard G. Frohling of the Eastern District of Wisconsin announced that on August 24, 2021, Devery Moses (age:29), a former airline pilot from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 180 months in federal prison by United States District Judge Lynn Adelman.

According to court records, Moses engaged in online “sextortion” with several underage girls from across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.  Some of the victims were as young as twelve years old.  Filings indicate that after Moses received sexually explicit photographs and videos from his victims, he threatened to expose them on social media if they did not comply with his demand for increasingly outrageous and outlandish sexual acts.

Filings in the case reveal that many of the victims suffered significant, ongoing emotional trauma from his actions, including one victim reporting serious suicidal thoughts.

This successful prosecution of this case was the result of the extraordinary efforts of the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation, in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Milwaukee Division, and the Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office.  It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Megan J. Paulson and Abbey Marzick.

Moses’s federal sentence will run concurrently with a -year sentence previously imposed for a state conviction for possession of child pornography.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006, by the U.S. Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. 

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For further information contact:

Public Information Officer Kenneth Gales                                                                     

Kenneth.Gales@usdoj.gov

414-297-1700

Updated August 24, 2021