Man Who Shared Child Pornography, Fled St. Louis Sentenced to 188 Months in Prison

ST. LOUIS –A man who possessed and shared child pornography and then fled from St. Louis while on house arrest was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years and eight months in prison. 

U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Tuesday also ordered Daniel Bert, 38, to be placed on supervised release for life after he gets out of prison.

Bert, of St. Louis, Missouri, possessed child sexual abuse material on multiple electronic devices, including laptops, phones and hard drives. After receiving two tips about Bert, the FBI discovered he was discussing his sexual interest in young children on Kik Messenger. An undercover FBI special agent began communicating with Bert on another app, Wickr. Bert sent a picture of his genitals to the agent, told the agent that he had a hard drive full of child pornography and asked the agent to join him in an online video chat during which Bert played videos containing child pornography. 

After his indictment, Bert removed his GPS monitoring device while on house arrest and fled St. Louis. He was arrested in Florida on May 11.

Bert pleaded guilty in August to a felony charge of transportation of child pornography.

The case was investigated by the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Bateman prosecuted the case.

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 Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.justice.gov/psc.