Tech Company’s Tip Leads to Guilty Plea of Lake St. Louis Man

ST. LOUIS – A Lake St. Louis, Missouri man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis Tuesday and admitted taking pictures of his sexual abuse of a young girl.

Steve G. Flores, 51, pleaded guilty in front of U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White to one count of production of child pornography. 

Authorities were initially alerted by a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by a cloud storage company about two files that appeared to contain child sexual abuse material. Court approved searches of Flores’ Google and cloud storage accounts revealed hundreds of pictures and videos he’d produced of the victim. A search of his home on Nov. 8, 2022, found electronic devices that contained similar images, as well as other images containing child pornography.

Flores is scheduled to be sentenced March 5, 2024. The charge carries a mandatory minimum prison term of 15 years, with a maximum of 30. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson will ask for 25 years, the plea agreement says.

The FBI, the St. Charles County Police Department and St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson is prosecuting 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.