St. Louis County Man Arrested on Child Pornography Charge

ST. LOUIS – A man from St. Louis County, Missouri was arrested Friday on a federal charge of receiving of child pornography.

Christopher D. Cotton, 32, appeared in U.S. District Court in St. Louis later Friday and pleaded not guilty. He was indicted this week.

The indictment alleges that Cotton used electronic devices to receive multiple videos and images containing child pornography, including videos featuring infants.

A motion seeking to have him jailed until trial says Cotton traded child pornography with others, possessed thousands of videos and images containing child pornography and had asked for and received sexual images from minors that he’d communicated with via social media.

The motion says the investigation began with a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after someone uploaded files containing child sexual abuse material to Dropbox.

The case was investigated by the Maryland Heights Police Department, the St. Louis County Special Investigations Unit and the FBI.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson 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.