KANSAS CITY, MO—Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for having thousands of images of child pornography on his computer.

Duane E. Elliott, 57, of Kansas City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple to seven years in federal prison without parole. Elliott has also paid $3,000 in restitution to one of the victims whose images of child sexual abuse were included in his collection of child pornography.

On Oct. 28, 2014, Elliott pleaded guilty to two counts of receiving child pornography over the Internet.

A detective with the Independence, Mo., Police Department identified Elliott’s computer as sharing child pornography over the Internet. Elliott used a peer-to-peer file-sharing program to make approximately 20 movies of child pornography available for distribution over the Internet on multiple occasions.

Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Elliott’s residence and seized multiple computers and electronic storage media, which contained thousands of images of child pornography. Investigators found more than 1,000 movies and more than 2,500 images of child pornography. Some of the movies depicted sexually explicit conduct with children under the age of 12, and some depicted children in bondage or subjected to other sadistic or violent sexual abuse. Among the videos were two instructional videos, one titled, “How to Molest Juveniles.”

According to court documents, Elliott had more child pornography stored on an encrypted hard drive that could not be examined.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. It was investigated by the Independence, Mo., Police Department and the FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”