Missouri Man Sentenced to 210 Months in Prison for Sexually Exploiting Boy

CAPE GIRARDEAU – U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. on Tuesday sentenced a man from Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri to 210 months in prison for producing photos of the sexual abuse of a young boy.

Noah Church, 22, pleaded guilty in September to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Church admitted sending images containing child sexual abuse material to an undercover FBI agent.

In April of 2022, the FBI began investigating the use by Church of an online chat forum on Kik Messenger. Church, who used the username “LittleBois123,” shared pictures of a child and discussed sexually abusing the child. The FBI traced LittleBois123 to a home in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri and conducted a court-approved search of the home on June 8, 2022. They found photos of the child on Church’s phone, which contained hundreds of images containing child pornography, his plea agreement says.

After his release from prison, Church will be on supervised release for 20 years.

The FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Hunter 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.