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Press Release

Belleville Man Sentenced For Child Pornography And Drug Related Offenses

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Illinois

Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced that on November 7, 2014, Daris A. Quinn, a/k/a “DQ,” 26, of Belleville, Illinois, was sentenced on three counts of a four-count Indictment (One count was dismissed at sentencing). On Count 2, charging Possession of Visual Depictions of Minors Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conduct, the Court sentenced Quinn to 80 months in federal prison. The Court sentenced Quinn to 21 months in federal prison on Count 3, Using a Communication Facility to Facilitate a Drug Transaction, and Count 4, Making a False Statement to a United States Postal Inspector, to run concurrently to each other, but consecutively to Count 2, for a total term in federal prison of 101 months. The Court ordered Quinn to serve a five (5) year term of supervised release on Count 2, a one (1) year term of supervised release on Count 3, and a three (3) year term of supervised released on Count 4, all to run concurrently, for a total term of supervised release of five (5) years. The Court also ordered Quinn to pay a fine of $150 on each count, for a total fine of $450, and a $300 special assessment. Quinn has been held without bond since his arraignment on a criminal complaint on May 30, 2013.

The offense in Count 2 was revealed on October 19, 2011, when Quinn’s cellular telephone was seized during the search of a residence where Quinn was present. A forensic examination of Quinn’s cellular telephone revealed videos taken by Quinn of a minor performing oral sex on Quinn in both his car and inside the minor’s home. The minor was fifteen years old at the time the videos were made; Quinn was 23.

With respect to Count 3, the forensic examination of Quinn’s cellular telephone also revealed that Quinn had used his cellular telephone, a communication facility, between on or about August 19, 2011 and October 10, 2011, to facilitate the distribution of controlled substances between himself and an individual located in Oakland, California. Text messages found on the telephone discussed, among other things, the amount of drugs to be shipped, the location of where to ship the drugs, and ways to disguise the smell of the drugs to be shipped so that the narcotics-sniffing canines would not detect them.

Finally, the offense charged in Count 4 occurred on or about February 26, 2013, during the investigation of a suspicious package by the United States Postal Inspection Service. The package was addressed to an individual in California. It listed a return address in Collinsville, Illinois, but did not provide a name. A search warrant was obtained to open the package after a narcotics-sniffing dog alerted on it. Inside the package was $23,650 in United States Currency. United States Postal Inspectors posed as postal workers to see if anyone would claim the package. A few days later, Quinn, identifying himself by a false name, arranged to come to the post office in Collinsville, Illinois, to pick up the package. Quinn continued to provide this false name to the Postal Inspector who interviewed him regarding the package. After initially lying about the contents of the package, Quinn told the Postal Inspector that he was sending the money to a friend so his friend could buy a car. Quinn then stopped talking and left when confronted with the search warrant and a photograph of the contents of the package. When the Postal Inspectors tried to stop the vehicle that he was riding in, Quinn jumped out and fled. The Postal Inspectors did not learn Quinn’s true identity until after he was eventually caught and taken to the Collinsville Police Department.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 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.”

The case was investigated by the Collinsville Police Department, the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Springfield Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.

Updated February 19, 2015