Hollister Sex Offender Sentenced to 20 Years for Child Porn

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a convicted sex offender in Hollister, Mo., has been sentenced to federal prison for receiving child pornography.

Charles Neel Alexander, 64, of Hollister, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, to a total of 20 years in federal prison without parole and to a lifetime of supervised release following his incarceration. The court sentenced Alexander to 15 years for receipt of child pornography and five years on a supervised release violation, to be served consecutively.

On July 29, 2015, Alexander pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography.

Alexander was under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office as part of his sentence in the Western District of Texas for failing to register as a sex offender. Alexander had been convicted in the Western District of Texas of interstate transportation of child pornography, for which he was sentenced to 87 months in prison and required to register as a sex offender. He was subsequently convicted of failing to register as a sex offender. Alexander’s supervised release was transferred to the Western District of Missouri.

During a routine home visit, a probation officer seized a cell phone from Alexander that contained images and videos of child pornography. One of the conditions of Alexander’s term of supervised release states: “The defendant shall not possess or use a phone or any other electronic device that allows access to the Internet without the prior written permission of the probation officer.”

Law enforcement officers performed a forensic analysis of the phone and discovered at least 16 images of child pornography that included infants and children. Officers searched his residence and seized a laptop computer, a tablet and various electronic media that contained child pornography.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the FBI.

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."