Blue Springs Man Pleads Guilty to Possessing Child Pornography
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 04, 2010 |
KANSAS CITY, MO—Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Blue Springs, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to possessing child pornography.
David Anthony Dunn, 21, of Blue Springs, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple this morning to the charge contained in a July 14, 2009, federal indictment.
On July 31, 2008, following a tip sent to the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children, members of the FBI Cybercrimes Task Force contacted Dunn at his residence. During that interview, Dunn admitted to the officers that, using a computer at the residence, he had uploaded, downloaded, viewed, and saved images of child pornography. Dunn said that since 2001 he had searched for and downloaded child pornography by, among other methods, joining several Internet groups in which child pornography was traded. Dunn said he had saved his child pornography onto two DVDs.
Dunn’s computer hard drives and the DVDs contained multiple images and videos of child pornography, including depictions of bondage and other types of violence, as well as victims under the age of 12 years.
Under federal statutes, Dunn is subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $250,000 and an order of restitution. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
Project Safe Childhood
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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s 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.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Fincham. It was investigated by the FBI and the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.