KC Man Pleads Guilty to Possessing Child Porn

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to possessing an extensive collection of child pornography on his computer.

Colin J. Michael, 35, of Kansas City, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple to a federal information that charges him with possessing child pornography.

By pleading guilty today, Michael admitted that he was in possession of child pornography on Aug. 20, 2014. Michael must forfeit to the government an Apple iMac computer and a Hitachi hard drive, which were used to commit the offense.

According to today’s plea agreement, an officer with the FBI Dallas Child Exploitation Task Force identified Michael’s computer on Feb. 16, 2014, as sharing child pornography over the Internet via peer-to-peer file-sharing software. The officer downloaded 2,749 files of possible child pornography from Michael’s computer.

On Aug. 20, 2014, Kansas City FBI Task Force officers executed a search warrant at Michael’s residence. They seized his computer and hard drive from his home office.

Michael admitted to investigators that he had been looking at child pornography for a couple of years. Investigators found 1,200 photos and 80 movies containing child pornography on Michael’s computer and computer media.

Under federal statutes, Michael is subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Luna. It was investigated by the FBI Dallas Child Exploitation Task Force and the FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force (Kansas City).

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."