Fisk man pleads to porn
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Associate Editor, DAR
CAPE GIRARDEAU
Michael Charles Dissler, 53, pleaded guilty to one felony count of attempted transportation of child pornography before U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hahn, who appeared on behalf of Assistant U.S. Attorney Abbie Crites-Leoni.
Hahn said a second count of possession of child pornography against Dissler will be dismissed at sentencing, which is set for Nov. 10.
At that time, Crites-Leoni said, Dissler faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 40 years in prison, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.
“The 15-year minimum is based on Dissler’s prior conviction,” Crites-Leoni said. Dissler reportedly was convicted of sodomy, involving a 9-year-old boy, in August 1995.
With his plea, Dissler reportedly admitted on Oct. 2 he attempted to transport an image of child pornography over the Internet by sending the image as an attachment in an e-mail using his Yahoo e-mail account.
The image Dissler attempted to transport reportedly was a
graphic video file depicting a
minor female engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
On Jan. 15, law enforcement officers seized Dissler’s
computer from his Fisk residence. Forensic analysis of the computer’s hard drive reportedly revealed Dissler possessed
more than 600 image files of
minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
During an interview on Jan. 30, Dissler reportedly admitted he had one prior conviction, under the laws of the State of Missouri
Dissler is scheduled to appear at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday for sentencing in Butler County
Dissler, who had earlier pleaded guilty as charged, was supposed to have been sentenced in June; however, his case reportedly was continued at that time because he was in federal custody.
At the time of Dissler’s earlier plea, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour had recommended a four-year sentence in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Four years in the maximum possible sentence on a Class D felony.
After accepting Dissler’s plea, Richardson
court.
The charges against Dissler stem from an investigation by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and
other members of the SEMO
Cyber Crimes Task Force from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and Dexter Police Department.
The investigation into three “cybertipline reports concluded that an adult male,” later identified as Dissler, had “conversed
with an underage female by use of the Internet chat provider AOL (America Online Inc.), and that the conversation was
of a sexual nature, specifically
Dissler asking the child for oral sex,” Shackelford said in his
probable cause affidavit on file
with the Butler County court.
The cybertipline information also included AOL reporting “they had caught the transmission of two video files they
suspected to be child pornography being sent from an e-mail account owned by Dissler,” said Shackelford, who serves as commander of the Cyber Crimes Task Force.
On Jan. 15, Shackelford said, he went to Dissler’s residence in the 7000 block of County Road 644 to follow up on the tips generated from the National Center
and Exploited Children.
A consensual search of Dissler’s computer, as well as printed images from his computer, which were housed in his bedroom, revealed “several images of child pornography … both on printed paper, as well
as residing in saved files to the
hard drive of (his) computer,” Shackelford explained.
There were numerous images, he said, depicting children of prepubescent ages, as well as numerous ones of youth, around the age of puberty, in sexually explicit poses.
Dissler, Shackelford said, made statements that he had pictures of “young girls in their early to mid-teens, both on his computer, as well as printed, and directed officers to the location of where he stored the printed images in a box under his bed … ”
Furthermore, Shackelford
said, one video file of suspected
child pornography was found on Dissler’s computer, which “depicted a 10- to 12-year-old female nude on a bed performing” a sex act.
Other images of “child pornography and suspected child pornography have been located on Dissler’s computer hard drive, and in the ‘My Documents’ folder of said hard drive,” Shackelford said.
After being arrested and told of his rights, Shackelford said, Dissler admitted “ownership of the computer,” as well as “claimed ownership, prior to its termination, of the AOL account ‘dss15.’”
That account, he said, was the one to “which several of the printed images of child pornography showed to have been sent to, thus showing that he was, in fact, the user of the account that received and printed and saved these images of child pornography.
“Furthermore, Dissler admitted to receiving and sending files of suspected child pornography through the use of AOL e-mail accounts.”
Woman faces child porn charge
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Associate Editor - DAR
When a Poplar Bluff woman was charged Wednesday with child pornography-related felonies she became only the third woman this year to face such charges in the state.
Jeanette E. Lambert, 52, of the 1600 block of North Main Street was charged with the Class D felony of possession of child pornography and the Class C felony of promoting child pornography in the second degree by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.
Lambert, who authorities believe is only the third woman charged statewide so far in 2008, was arrested at 10:15 a.m. Thursday at her place of employment by Scott Phelps, an investigator with the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
She subsequently was booked at the Poplar Bluff Police Department and released after posting a $25,000 cash or surety bond.
The complaint on ÿle with the court alleges on July 15, Lambert, “knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material, consisting of
a graphic video flle depicting
a prepubescent female laying nude on a bed … and an unknown adult male sodomizing the child,” who was under the age of 14 years and said
graphic video file “with the
intent to distribute.”
The charges against Lambert stem from an investigation by the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
On July 15, the task force’s commander, Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police
Department, was “conducting
an online undercover operation.”
The operation was targeting a computer “known to have been offering to participate in the distribution of child pornography,” Shackelford said in
his probable cause affidavit.
After making what Shackelford described as a direct “computer to computer” connection with the “suspect computer,” he said, he found
75 files of “verflied child
pornography and available for
distribution. I chose one file and downloaded this file from
the suspect’s computer.”
Shackelford said the file was verified as a child pornography
video, depicting a child, under the age of 14, being sexually assaulted by an adult male.
The user/subscriber for the Internet protocol address, Shackelford said, was traced to a residence, where Lambert resided, in the 1600 block of Main Street.
Subsequently, Shackelford said, a search warrant was served at the residence and
officers seized a computer,
belonging to Lambert, as well as other items of digital media.
“While on the scene, during the search warrant, a verbal admission was obtained” from Lambert “in regards to the
child pornography files on the
computer.
“Lambert stated that she
had acquired the files herself
via the Internet, and that they were downloaded for her use and her use only.”
When conducting the forensics examination, Shackelford said, he found more than 100
files of “known or suspected
child pornography, located in various areas of the hard drive and saved in various folders. They were all under the user name of Jeanette Lambert.”
The files, Shackelford said,
appear to portray minor(s) participating in or observing a sexual act.
“Some of these video files
of child pornography were located in other areas of the hard drive, but still within the user account (of) ‘Jeanette Lambert,’” Shackelford said. “Furthermore, some of the
video files were also located on recordable DVDs at the
residence, in the suspect’s bedroom.”
Fisk man in court on porn
CAPE GIRARDEAU— A Fisk man is to appear in federal court today on charges relating to his alleged possession of child pornography.
Michael Charles Dissler, 53, is to appear at 10:15 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lewis Blanton for a pre-trial motion hearing on a two-count indictment, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Abbie Crites-Leoni.
The indictment alleges on Oct. 2, Dissler did “knowingly attempt to transport and ship in interstate commerce, by means of a computer, a graphic
video file containing child
pornography.”
The indictment further alleges on Jan. 15, Dissler did “knowingly possess” a 80 gigabyte hard drive, which was produced in Thailand and “therefore has traveled interstate and foreign commerce, and which contained
child pornography, specifically
including, but not limited to …
a graphic video file depicting
a prepubescent minor female ... having sexual and deviant sexual intercourse with” an adult male.
If convicted, Crites-Leoni said, Dissler faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 40 years in prison on the attempted transportation of child pornography charge and a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 years on the possession of child pornography charge.
“These are enhanced sentences based on a prior child molestation conviction,” Crites-Leoni said. Dissler reportedly was convicted of sodomy, involving a 9-year-old boy, in August 1995.
Dissler, who reportedly is in federal custody, also is to appear at 8:30 a.m. today for sentencing in Butler County before Presiding Circuit Judge Mark Richardson on the Class D felony of possession of child pornography
.
Dissler, who had earlier pleaded guilty as charged, was supposed to have been sentenced in June; however, his case reportedly was continued at that time because he was in federal custody.
At the time of Dissler’s earlier plea, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour had recommended a four-year sentence in the Missouri Department of Corrections.
After accepting Dissler’s plea, Richardson ordered a sentencing assessment report (SAR) be completed by Probation and Parole. The SAR
reportedly has been filed with
the court.
The charges against Dissler stem from an investigation by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and other members of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and Dexter Police Department.
The investigation into three “cybertipline reports concluded that an adult male,” later identified as Dissler, had “conversed
with an underage female by use of the Internet chat provider AOL (America Online Inc.), and that the conversation was
of a sexual nature, specifically
Dissler asking the child for oral sex,” Shackelford said in his
probable cause affidavit on file
with the Butler County court.
The cybertipline information also included AOL reporting “they had caught the transmission of two video
files they suspected to be child
pornography being sent from an e-mail account owned by Dissler,” said Shackelford, who serves as commander of the Cyber Crimes Task Force
.
On Jan. 15, Shackelford said, he went to Dissler’s
residence in the 7000 block of
County Road 644 to follow up on the tips generated from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
A consensual search of Dissler’s computer, as well as printed images from his computer, which were housed in his bedroom, revealed “several images of child pornography … both on printed paper, as
well as residing in saved files
to the hard drive of (his) computer,” Shackelford explained.
According to Shackelford, there were numerous images depicting children of prepubescent ages, as well as numerous ones of youth, around the age of puberty, in sexually explicit poses.
Dissler, Shackelford said, made statements that he had pictures of “young girls in their early to mid-teens, both on his computer, as well as printed,
and directed officers to the
location of where he stored the printed images in a box under his bed … ”
Furthermore, Shackelford said, one video file of suspected child pornography was found on Dissler’s computer, which “depicted a 10- to 12-year-old female nude on a bed performing” a sex act
.
Other images of “child pornography and suspected child pornography have been located on Dissler’s computer hard drive, and in the ‘My Documents’ folder of said hard drive,” Shackelford said.
After being arrested and told of his rights, Shackelford said, Dissler admitted “ownership of the computer, saying that he had purchased it new from a business, as well as claimed ownership, prior to its termination, of the AOL account ‘dss15.’”
That account, Shackelford said, was the one to “which several of the printed images of child pornography showed to have been sent to, thus showing that he was, in fact, the user of the account that received and printed and saved these images of child pornography.
“Furthermore, Dissler admitted to receiving and sending files of suspected child
pornography through the use of AOL e-mail accounts.”
Cyber Crimes Grant Allows Second Person on Task Force
The recent renewal of the grant funding the Southeast Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force has made it possible for a second full-time investigator to be added to combat child exploitation crimes occurring over the Internet.
Founded in January 2007, the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force’s initial grant was for just more than $48,000.
At that time, the unit was comprised of nine agencies with one full-time investigator, Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department, serving as its commander.
“This year, we saw an increase in excess of $100,000,” said Shackelford, who attributes the increase to the state’s awareness that more money is needed to “effectively combat” these types of crimes.
“There are several different types of investigations concerning these crimes — field investigations, online investigations and forensic investigations,” Shackelford said. “Each of
these areas takes a significant
amount of time and therefore an additional investigator was needed.”
The grant, he said, is from the Internet Cyber Crime Grant Program, which is administered through the Missouri Department of Public Safety, for regional task forces to combat “the differing types of child exploitation crimes occurring over the Internet.”
One of the advantages of the grant program is “it has allowed more investigators to focus on cyber crimes against children,” explained Joe Laramie, director of the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children.
While it may look like more cyber crimes are occurring now, Laramie said, “it’s really more response to (the crimes) in a better way, more bad guys in jail, more investigators devoting time to it.”
According to Laramie, as the state continues to increase the number of resources, the number of cases will increase at the same rate. “We have not reached anywhere near our saturation rate,” he said.
Local investigators, Shackelford said, have seen a “significant increase in these cases
since the task force’s inception.”
Adding a second full-time investigator, he said, was one of the main reasons for the increased funding for the local task force.
“We were awarded the funding to take an existing task force member and make them full time,” Shackelford said. The grant funds an additional detective salary “to assist in the heavy caseload for the Southeast Missouri unit,” he said.
Scott Phelps, who had served as a part-time investigator, representing the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, was hired earlier this month to
fill that new position.
“I enjoyed my time there; the sheriff’s department has a lot of wonderful people (and) I enjoyed working with and for the sheriff, (but) I liked this type of work,” Phelps said. “When the opportunity presented itself, I accepted it.”
Shackelford said the objective is for Phelps to be the investigation coordinator for the task force.
“His duties will be doing
both field investigations and
online investigations and coordinating these investigations with the various agencies in the region,” Shackelford said. “I will be able to concentrate more efforts in the forensic examination of computers and other digital devices, such as cell phones (and) small-scale digital devices even some (global-positioning , system) units.”
These duties, according to Shackelford, are still “just a part of the resources we can provide to area law enforcement agencies and their communities.”
With the full-time personnel, “they are still able to connect with the detectives of the other agencies,” Laramie said. “These guys (Shackelford and Phelps) become the go-to guys, the experts who devote more and more time to these types of crimes.”
Shackelford said assisting law enforcement, as well as public education are “still top priorities of the task force.”
“We will both be conducting education prevention programs to organizations, schools” and other interested groups, as well as provide training courses to
law enforcement officers in
Southeast Missouri, Shackelford said
.
“In the time I’ve worked with Detective Shackelford, I’ve seen the workload he was
under and I saw first hand the
need for additional resources/ manpower so that the task force can be even more effective in combating online predators,” Phelps said. “He’s done a good job (but) I believe, in working with Jeff, he and I can do a lot more things to keep making it better and be more effective.”
Since these of types of investigations may lead anywhere in the United States, Shackelford said, he received a “federal deputation” earlier this year as a special deputy U.S. marshal to “eliminate any jurisdictional issues” on his investigations
.
“ … This way I have federal authority and (can) work these cases wherever they may be in the country,” Shackelford explained.
Any agency in Southeast Missouri needing Shackelford or Phelps’ assistance with an investigation or anyone wanting additional information about online crimes against children may reach them at (573) 785-5776 or www.scctf.org.
|
Fisk man pleads to porn
|
When a Poplar Bluff woman was charged Wednesday with child pornography-related felonies she became only the third woman this year to face such charges in the state.
Jeanette E. Lambert, 52, of the 1600 block of North Main Street was charged with the Class D felony of possession of child pornography and the Class C felony of promoting child pornography in the second degree by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.
Lambert, who authorities believe is only the third woman charged statewide so far in 2008, was arrested at 10:15 a.m. Thursday at her place of employment by Scott Phelps, an investigator with the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
She subsequently was booked at the Poplar Bluff Police Department and released after posting a $25,000 cash or surety bond.
The complaint on ÿle with the court alleges on July 15, Lambert, “knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material, consisting of
a graphic video flle depicting
a prepubescent female laying nude on a bed … and an unknown adult male sodomizing the child,” who was under the age of 14 years and said
graphic video file “with the
intent to distribute.”
The charges against Lambert stem from an investigation by the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
On July 15, the task force’s commander, Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police
Department, was “conducting
an online undercover operation.”
The operation was targeting a computer “known to have been offering to participate in the distribution of child pornography,” Shackelford said in
his probable cause affidavit.
After making what Shackelford described as a direct “computer to computer” connection with the “suspect computer,” he said, he found
75 files of “verflied child
pornography and available for
distribution. I chose one file and downloaded this file from
the suspect’s computer.”
Shackelford said the file was verified as a child pornography
video, depicting a child, under the age of 14, being sexually assaulted by an adult male.
The user/subscriber for the Internet protocol address, Shackelford said, was traced to a residence, where Lambert resided, in the 1600 block of Main Street.
Subsequently, Shackelford said, a search warrant was served at the residence and
officers seized a computer,
belonging to Lambert, as well as other items of digital media.
“While on the scene, during the search warrant, a verbal admission was obtained” from Lambert “in regards to the
child pornography files on the
computer.
“Lambert stated that she
had acquired the files herself
via the Internet, and that they were downloaded for her use and her use only.”
When conducting the forensics examination, Shackelford said, he found more than 100
files of “known or suspected
child pornography, located in various areas of the hard drive and saved in various folders. They were all under the user name of Jeanette Lambert.”
The files, Shackelford said,
appear to portray minor(s) participating in or observing a sexual act.
“Some of these video files
of child pornography were located in other areas of the hard drive, but still within the user account (of) ‘Jeanette Lambert,’” Shackelford said. “Furthermore, some of the
video files were also located on recordable DVDs at the
residence, in the suspect’s bedroom.”
CAPE GIRARDEAU— A Fisk man is to appear in federal court today on charges relating to his alleged possession of child pornography. Michael Charles Dissler, 53, is to appear at 10:15 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lewis Blanton for a pre-trial motion hearing on a two-count indictment, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Abbie Crites-Leoni.
The indictment alleges on Oct. 2, Dissler did “knowingly attempt to transport and ship in interstate commerce, by means of a computer, a graphic
video file containing child
pornography.”
The indictment further alleges on Jan. 15, Dissler did “knowingly possess” a 80 gigabyte hard drive, which was produced in Thailand and “therefore has traveled interstate and foreign commerce, and which contained
child pornography, specifically
including, but not limited to …
a graphic video file depicting
a prepubescent minor female ... having sexual and deviant sexual intercourse with” an adult male.
If convicted, Crites-Leoni said, Dissler faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 40 years in prison on the attempted transportation of child pornography charge and a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 years on the possession of child pornography charge.
“These are enhanced sentences based on a prior child molestation conviction,” Crites-Leoni said. Dissler reportedly was convicted of sodomy, involving a 9-year-old boy, in August 1995.
Dissler, who reportedly is in federal custody, also is to appear at 8:30 a.m. today for sentencing in Butler County before Presiding Circuit Judge Mark Richardson on the Class D felony of possession of child pornography
.
Dissler, who had earlier pleaded guilty as charged, was supposed to have been sentenced in June; however, his case reportedly was continued at that time because he was in federal custody.
At the time of Dissler’s earlier plea, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour had recommended a four-year sentence in the Missouri Department of Corrections.
After accepting Dissler’s plea, Richardson ordered a sentencing assessment report (SAR) be completed by Probation and Parole. The SAR
reportedly has been filed with
the court.
The charges against Dissler stem from an investigation by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and other members of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and Dexter Police Department.
The investigation into three “cybertipline reports concluded that an adult male,” later identified as Dissler, had “conversed
with an underage female by use of the Internet chat provider AOL (America Online Inc.), and that the conversation was
of a sexual nature, specifically
Dissler asking the child for oral sex,” Shackelford said in his
probable cause affidavit on file
with the Butler County court.
The cybertipline information also included AOL reporting “they had caught the transmission of two video
files they suspected to be child
pornography being sent from an e-mail account owned by Dissler,” said Shackelford, who serves as commander of the Cyber Crimes Task Force
.
On Jan. 15, Shackelford said, he went to Dissler’s
residence in the 7000 block of
County Road 644 to follow up on the tips generated from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
A consensual search of Dissler’s computer, as well as printed images from his computer, which were housed in his bedroom, revealed “several images of child pornography … both on printed paper, as
well as residing in saved files
to the hard drive of (his) computer,” Shackelford explained.
According to Shackelford, there were numerous images depicting children of prepubescent ages, as well as numerous ones of youth, around the age of puberty, in sexually explicit poses.
Dissler, Shackelford said, made statements that he had pictures of “young girls in their early to mid-teens, both on his computer, as well as printed,
and directed officers to the
location of where he stored the printed images in a box under his bed … ”
Furthermore, Shackelford said, one video file of suspected child pornography was found on Dissler’s computer, which “depicted a 10- to 12-year-old female nude on a bed performing” a sex act
.
Other images of “child pornography and suspected child pornography have been located on Dissler’s computer hard drive, and in the ‘My Documents’ folder of said hard drive,” Shackelford said.
After being arrested and told of his rights, Shackelford said, Dissler admitted “ownership of the computer, saying that he had purchased it new from a business, as well as claimed ownership, prior to its termination, of the AOL account ‘dss15.’”
That account, Shackelford said, was the one to “which several of the printed images of child pornography showed to have been sent to, thus showing that he was, in fact, the user of the account that received and printed and saved these images of child pornography.
“Furthermore, Dissler admitted to receiving and sending files of suspected child
pornography through the use of AOL e-mail accounts.”
Founded in January 2007, the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force’s initial grant was for just more than $48,000.
At that time, the unit was comprised of nine agencies with one full-time investigator, Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department, serving as its commander.
“This year, we saw an increase in excess of $100,000,” said Shackelford, who attributes the increase to the state’s awareness that more money is needed to “effectively combat” these types of crimes.
“There are several different types of investigations concerning these crimes — field investigations, online investigations and forensic investigations,” Shackelford said. “Each of
these areas takes a significant
amount of time and therefore an additional investigator was needed.”
The grant, he said, is from the Internet Cyber Crime Grant Program, which is administered through the Missouri Department of Public Safety, for regional task forces to combat “the differing types of child exploitation crimes occurring over the Internet.”
One of the advantages of the grant program is “it has allowed more investigators to focus on cyber crimes against children,” explained Joe Laramie, director of the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children.
While it may look like more cyber crimes are occurring now, Laramie said, “it’s really more response to (the crimes) in a better way, more bad guys in jail, more investigators devoting time to it.”
According to Laramie, as the state continues to increase the number of resources, the number of cases will increase at the same rate. “We have not reached anywhere near our saturation rate,” he said.
Local investigators, Shackelford said, have seen a “significant increase in these cases
since the task force’s inception.”
Adding a second full-time investigator, he said, was one of the main reasons for the increased funding for the local task force.
“We were awarded the funding to take an existing task force member and make them full time,” Shackelford said. The grant funds an additional detective salary “to assist in the heavy caseload for the Southeast Missouri unit,” he said.
Scott Phelps, who had served as a part-time investigator, representing the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, was hired earlier this month to
fill that new position.
“I enjoyed my time there; the sheriff’s department has a lot of wonderful people (and) I enjoyed working with and for the sheriff, (but) I liked this type of work,” Phelps said. “When the opportunity presented itself, I accepted it.”
Shackelford said the objective is for Phelps to be the investigation coordinator for the task force.
“His duties will be doing
both field investigations and
online investigations and coordinating these investigations with the various agencies in the region,” Shackelford said. “I will be able to concentrate more efforts in the forensic examination of computers and other digital devices, such as cell phones (and) small-scale digital devices even some (global-positioning , system) units.”
These duties, according to Shackelford, are still “just a part of the resources we can provide to area law enforcement agencies and their communities.”
With the full-time personnel, “they are still able to connect with the detectives of the other agencies,” Laramie said. “These guys (Shackelford and Phelps) become the go-to guys, the experts who devote more and more time to these types of crimes.”
Shackelford said assisting law enforcement, as well as public education are “still top priorities of the task force.”
“We will both be conducting education prevention programs to organizations, schools” and other interested groups, as well as provide training courses to
law enforcement officers in
Southeast Missouri, Shackelford said
.
“In the time I’ve worked with Detective Shackelford, I’ve seen the workload he was
under and I saw first hand the
need for additional resources/ manpower so that the task force can be even more effective in combating online predators,” Phelps said. “He’s done a good job (but) I believe, in working with Jeff, he and I can do a lot more things to keep making it better and be more effective.”
Since these of types of investigations may lead anywhere in the United States, Shackelford said, he received a “federal deputation” earlier this year as a special deputy U.S. marshal to “eliminate any jurisdictional issues” on his investigations
.
“ … This way I have federal authority and (can) work these cases wherever they may be in the country,” Shackelford explained.
Any agency in Southeast Missouri needing Shackelford or Phelps’ assistance with an investigation or anyone wanting additional information about online crimes against children may reach them at (573) 785-5776 or www.scctf.org.
PB Man is Facing Child Porn Charge
By Michelle Friedrich, Associate Editor -DAR
A Poplar Bluff man is free on bond after turning himself in Tuesday morning on a warrant charging him with possessing child pornography.
Coy Delaney Alspaugh, 51 of the 200 block of County Road 527 surrendered at about 10:15 a.m. to Poplar Bluff Police Detective Jeff Shackelford.
Alspaugh, who was booked at the Butler County jail and released after posting a $10,000 bond, was charged Monday with the Class D felony of possession of child pornography by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.
The complaint on file with
the court alleges on May 5 Alspaugh “knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material, consisting of
video files depicting females
being sexually assaulted forced to have sexual intercourse and performing oral sex on unknown adult males and other prepubescent males,”
and said video files portrayed
“what to be a under the appears of 14 person as a
age years participant of sexual conduct.” The charge against Alspaugh is the result of an investigation by Shackelford, who is commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force, and Scott Phelps, a sergeant with the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and task force investigator.
“Through the use of a tracking program designed by the (Internet Crimes Against Children) Task Force to track persons collecting and trading items of child pornography
through file sharing networks
I was given the February 2008 database results for the state of Missouri which showed one IP address in particular in the Poplar Bluff area that had numerous transmissions (uploads/ downloads) of child pornography,” Shackelford explained in
his probable cause affidavit.
A trace of the IP (Internet protocol) address was conducted and the City of Poplar Bluff - Municipal Utilities (City Cable) was found to be the owner Shackelford said
“The user , /subscriber infor . - mation was obtained through a subpoena, and found that Bryan Alspaugh … was the account holder of this Internet protocol address (through his City Cable Internet account),” Shackelford said.
When Bryan Alspaugh was interviewed Shackelford said, he learned that Alspaugh’s father and brother also used the computer.
“I received consent to search this computer in a forensic examination and found numerous video and image
files of child pornography and
mainly all of these were of prepubescent females ” said Shackelford, who interviewed Bryan Alspaugh’s father, Coy Alspaugh, regarding his findings.
After being told of his rights, the elder Alspaugh agreed to talk with Shackelford.
“In this interview, Coy
admitted that all the files of
child pornography were his and that he had obtained these from the Internet ” Shackelford
said. “Most of the video files
depicted females, approximately 6 to 12 years of age, and possibly younger being sexually assaulted and forced to have sexual intercourse or perform sex on unknown males and other prepubescent males.”
Alspaugh, according to Shackelford, told him he had
acquired all of these files and
that “he had hidden the folder
containing these files in the computer’s file structure so
that his sons or visiting friends would not see them on the computer.
“Coy stated that he knew
the files were illegal, and that he acted alone in acquiring and saving of these files.”
A Poplar Bluff man is free on bond after turning himself in Tuesday morning on a warrant charging him with possessing child pornography.
Coy Delaney Alspaugh, 51 of the 200 block of County Road 527 surrendered at about 10:15 a.m. to Poplar Bluff Police Detective Jeff Shackelford.
Alspaugh, who was booked at the Butler County jail and released after posting a $10,000 bond, was charged Monday with the Class D felony of possession of child pornography by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.
The complaint on file with
the court alleges on May 5 Alspaugh “knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material, consisting of
video files depicting females
being sexually assaulted forced to have sexual intercourse and performing oral sex on unknown adult males and other prepubescent males,”
and said video files portrayed
“what to be a under the appears of 14 person as a
age years participant of sexual conduct.” The charge against Alspaugh is the result of an investigation by Shackelford, who is commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force, and Scott Phelps, a sergeant with the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and task force investigator.
“Through the use of a tracking program designed by the (Internet Crimes Against Children) Task Force to track persons collecting and trading items of child pornography
through file sharing networks
I was given the February 2008 database results for the state of Missouri which showed one IP address in particular in the Poplar Bluff area that had numerous transmissions (uploads/ downloads) of child pornography,” Shackelford explained in
his probable cause affidavit.
A trace of the IP (Internet protocol) address was conducted and the City of Poplar Bluff - Municipal Utilities (City Cable) was found to be the owner Shackelford said
“The user , /subscriber infor . - mation was obtained through a subpoena, and found that Bryan Alspaugh … was the account holder of this Internet protocol address (through his City Cable Internet account),” Shackelford said.
When Bryan Alspaugh was interviewed Shackelford said, he learned that Alspaugh’s father and brother also used the computer.
“I received consent to search this computer in a forensic examination and found numerous video and image
files of child pornography and
mainly all of these were of prepubescent females ” said Shackelford, who interviewed Bryan Alspaugh’s father, Coy Alspaugh, regarding his findings.
After being told of his rights, the elder Alspaugh agreed to talk with Shackelford.
“In this interview, Coy
admitted that all the files of
child pornography were his and that he had obtained these from the Internet ” Shackelford
said. “Most of the video files
depicted females, approximately 6 to 12 years of age, and possibly younger being sexually assaulted and forced to have sexual intercourse or perform sex on unknown males and other prepubescent males.”
Alspaugh, according to Shackelford, told him he had
acquired all of these files and
that “he had hidden the folder
containing these files in the computer’s file structure so
that his sons or visiting friends would not see them on the computer.
“Coy stated that he knew
the files were illegal, and that he acted alone in acquiring and saving of these files.”
5-year sentence in Butler Co. porn case
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH, DAR
Associate Editor
CAPE GIRARDEAU — A Hazelwood man was sentenced Monday to more than
five years in federal prison
for possessing child pornography.
Brian M. Keiper, 34, was sentenced to 63 months on two counts of possession of child pornography, with the sentences ordered to run concurrently, by U.S. District Judge Jean Hamilton, according to the
U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Upon his release from prison, Keiper will be placed supervised release for the remainder of his life.
The charges against Keiper stem from an investigation, which began in early February 2007, by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and resulted in Keiper’s arrest in Poplar Bluff and the execution of a search warrant at his home on March 15, 2007.
Keiper’s computer, along with computer discs, webcam and other associated items, were seized and forensically examined by the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group.
Forensic analysis of Keiper’s computer and floppy discs reportedly revealed Keiper possessed at least 150 image files
of child pornography, that is images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Furthermore, according to
the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
some of the images contained sadistic and masochistic conduct and some of the images involved children under the age of 12.
Keiper still faces an unclassified felony of attempted enticement of a child in Butler County. In December, he was granted a change of venue on the state charge to Madison County.
Keiper is to appear there at 9 a.m. March 20 for a plea before Circuit Judge Kenneth Pratte.
The charge stems from an “undercover, online investigation,” Shackelford said at the time of Keiper’s March arrest
.
“During the course of the investigation, (Keiper) indicated his willingness and desire to make arrangements to travel to Poplar Bluff for an encounter of a sexual nature with a presumed 14-year-old female,” said Shackelford, who is commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
At one point, Shackelford said, Keiper allegedly transmitted a “real-time video feed via a computer webcam to the presumed 14-year-old girl, which depicted the suspect performing a sexual act.”
A meeting was arranged between Keiper and the presumed teenage girl.
Surveillance teams comprised of officers with the police
department, SEMO Drug Task Force and the Hazelwood Police Department located Keiper entering the city limits of Poplar Bluff, Shackelford said.
“(Keiper) was followed to a predetermined location where the suspect thought he was going to meet the presumed 14-year-old female,” Shackelford explained.
Upon Keiper’s arrival at that location, he was arrested without incident
.
Keiper was taken to the police station, where he was told of his rights and agreed to speak
with officers.
According to Shackelford, Keiper admitted to setting up the encounter.
During the interview, Keiper indicated he had “images that (were) of an illegal nature downloaded on his computer,” Shackelford said.
Keiper reportedly told officers he was solely responsible for the images on the computer and discs.
CAPE GIRARDEAU — A Hazelwood man was sentenced Monday to more than
five years in federal prison
for possessing child pornography.
Brian M. Keiper, 34, was sentenced to 63 months on two counts of possession of child pornography, with the sentences ordered to run concurrently, by U.S. District Judge Jean Hamilton, according to the
U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Upon his release from prison, Keiper will be placed supervised release for the remainder of his life.
The charges against Keiper stem from an investigation, which began in early February 2007, by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and resulted in Keiper’s arrest in Poplar Bluff and the execution of a search warrant at his home on March 15, 2007.
Keiper’s computer, along with computer discs, webcam and other associated items, were seized and forensically examined by the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group.
Forensic analysis of Keiper’s computer and floppy discs reportedly revealed Keiper possessed at least 150 image files
of child pornography, that is images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Furthermore, according to
the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
some of the images contained sadistic and masochistic conduct and some of the images involved children under the age of 12.
Keiper still faces an unclassified felony of attempted enticement of a child in Butler County. In December, he was granted a change of venue on the state charge to Madison County.
Keiper is to appear there at 9 a.m. March 20 for a plea before Circuit Judge Kenneth Pratte.
The charge stems from an “undercover, online investigation,” Shackelford said at the time of Keiper’s March arrest
.
“During the course of the investigation, (Keiper) indicated his willingness and desire to make arrangements to travel to Poplar Bluff for an encounter of a sexual nature with a presumed 14-year-old female,” said Shackelford, who is commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force.
At one point, Shackelford said, Keiper allegedly transmitted a “real-time video feed via a computer webcam to the presumed 14-year-old girl, which depicted the suspect performing a sexual act.”
A meeting was arranged between Keiper and the presumed teenage girl.
Surveillance teams comprised of officers with the police
department, SEMO Drug Task Force and the Hazelwood Police Department located Keiper entering the city limits of Poplar Bluff, Shackelford said.
“(Keiper) was followed to a predetermined location where the suspect thought he was going to meet the presumed 14-year-old female,” Shackelford explained.
Upon Keiper’s arrival at that location, he was arrested without incident
.
Keiper was taken to the police station, where he was told of his rights and agreed to speak
with officers.
According to Shackelford, Keiper admitted to setting up the encounter.
During the interview, Keiper indicated he had “images that (were) of an illegal nature downloaded on his computer,” Shackelford said.
Keiper reportedly told officers he was solely responsible for the images on the computer and discs.
From KFVS12 "Heartland News"
Man Busted on Child Porn Charges
By: CJ Cassidy
By: CJ Cassidy
FISK, Mo. - We often pass on warnings to parents to check on kids when they go online. But what happens if your child's an adult?
Police say they tracked down their suspect when he sent child porn videos and talked to someone he thought was a young girl online.
Now his mother says regardless of what happens, he can no longer live under her roof.
From deep inside his parents' rural Fisk home, police say 53-year-old Michael Dissler reached out to the rest of the world with a stack of child porn.
His mother, Mabel Rowe, says she knew her son was a registered sex offender but she had hoped he'd turned over a new leaf.
"He was on the computer a lot and watched kids. I jumped all over him. He didn't stop it...I asked him what in the hell is he doing? I said don't you know you're messing with these kids against the law? He said 'These aren't American kids, they're foreign ones.' I said don't make a damn, kids are kids," Rowe said.
Investigator Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department says police first came across Dissler about a year ago when an Internet service provider alerted them to an online chat.
They also point to a duffel bag full of unusual items, investigators say belongs to Dissler.
"We had a bag of condoms, a roll of duct tape, male enhancement formula," Shackelford said.
He also says they also found some rope in the bag and a notebook in which Dissler allegedly kept some interesting records.
"Detailed logs and notebooks of various people, including young females. The entire contents of that notebook are potentially beneficial to further investigation," he said.
Meanwhile, Mabel Rowe says she's angry and disappointed in her son.
"I'm very upset. There's no reason for him to do something like that," she said.
Rowe says if her son did do the crimes he's accused of doing, he should face punishment.
Michael Dissler's being held in the Butler County Jail.
Article from Daily American Republic...
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Associate Editor
An investigation by local authorities into three cybertipline reports led to a Fisk man being charged Thursday with possessing child pornography.
Michael Charles Dissler, 53, was charged with the Class D felony of possession of child pornography by Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour.
The complaint on file with
the court alleges on Jan. 15 Dissler, “knowing its contents and character, possessed obscene material consisting of numerous images of nude children engaged in sexual intercourse, digital penetration and oral sex, that portrays what appears to be a person under the age of 14 years as a participant of sexual conduct.”
Barbour submitted a letter to the court asking for Dissler to be held without bond.
“Due to the serious nature of the crime, the defendant’s criminal history and that (he) had in his possession a backpack containing a new roll of duct tape, a new roll of rope, a bag of condoms, two tubes of ‘Maxoderm’ male enhancement cream, Q-tips and a printed pornographic image of a female, I believe that (Dissler) poses a definite flight risk and is a danger to the community,” Barbour said. “I would request that (he) be held without bond … ”
After considering the proba-
ble cause affidavit filed with the court, Associate Circuit Judge John Bloodworth issued a warrant for Dissler’s arrest.
“Court reviews the letter, complaint and probable cause
statement and finds (Dissler) to be a flight risk and a threat
to the community safety, and orders (him) held without bond until further notice,” according to an entry on the Missouri State Courts Automated Case Management System.
During a court appearance Thursday, Dissler was formally arraigned on the charge, and his attorney, Pamela Musgrave with the Public Defender’s Of-
fice, made an oral motion for
bond reduction.
After Assistant Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Oesterreicher reportedly objected, Musgrave orally requested a bond investigation be done.
Bloodworth granted that request and ordered Dissler to appear Feb. 7 for a bond hearing and at 1 p.m. Feb. 21 for a preliminary hearing.
The charge against Dissler stems from an investigation by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and other members of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department and Dexter Police Department.
The investigation into three “cybertipline reports concluded that an adult male,” later identi-
fied as Dissler, had “conversed
with an underage female by use of the Internet chat provider AOL (America Online Inc.), and that the conversation was
of a sexual nature, specifically
Dissler asking the child for oral sex,” Shackelford said in his
probable cause affidavit.
The cybertipline information also included AOL reporting “they had caught the trans-
mission of two video files they
suspected to be child pornography being sent from an e-mail account owned by Dissler,” said Shackelford, who serves as commander of the Cyber Crimes Task Force.
On Jan. 15, Shackelford
said, he went to Dissler’s residence in the 7000 block of County Road 644 to follow up on the tips generated from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
A consensual search of Dissler’s computer, as well as printed images from his computer, which were housed in his bedroom, revealed “several images of child pornography … both on printed paper, as well
as residing in saved files to the
hard drive of (his) computer,” Shackelford explained
.
According to Shackelford, there were numerous images depicting children of prepubescent ages, as well as numerous ones of youth, around the age of puberty, in sexually explicit poses. Dissler, Shackelford said, made statements that he had pictures of “young girls in their early to mid-teens, both on his computer, as well as printed, and directed officers to the location of where he stored the printed images in a box under his bed … ”
Furthermore, Shackelford
said, one video file of suspected
child pornography was found on Dissler’s computer, which “depicted a 10- to 12-year-old female nude on a bed performing” a sex act.
Other images of “child pornography and suspected child pornography have been located on Dissler’s computer hard drive, and in the ‘My Documents’ folder of said hard drive,” Shackelford said.
Dissler was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his residence and taken to the police department, where he was told of his rights
.
During an interview, Dissler admitted “ownership of the computer, saying that he had purchased it new from a business, as well as claimed ownership, prior to its termination, of the AOL account ‘dss15,’” Shackelford explained.
That account, Shackelford said, was the one to “which several of the printed images of child pornography showed to have been sent to, thus showing that he was, in fact, the user of the account that received and printed and saved these images of child pornography.
“Furthermore, Dissler admitted to receiving and sending files of suspected child pornography through the use of AOL e-mail accounts.”
At this time, Shackelford
said, officers are not done
with the forensic analysis of Dissler’s computer and several other items of “investigative interest.”
Based on what is found, Shackelford said, he expects several more charges may be
filed against Dissler in the near
future, including the possible federal adoption of the case.
Poplar Bluff Police Investigator Jeff Shackelford leads Michael Dissler into the police department following his arrest Wednesday afternoon.
Article from Daily American Republic...
Associated Press Writer
misusing it, state officials
said Monday.
Several states' attorneys general said in a statement that MySpace will add several protections and participate in a working group to develop new technologies, including a way to verify the ages of users. Other social networking sites will be invited to participate.
MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., also will accept independent monitoring and changes the structure of its site.
The agreement was announced in Manhattan by attorneys general from New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
"The Internet can be a dangerous place for children and young adults, with
sexual predators surfing social
networking sites in search of potential victims and cyber bullies sending threatening and anonymous messages," said New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram.
One of the principals in overseeing the "success of these safeguards will be an online safety task force," explained Poplar Bluff Police Officer Jeff Shackelford, commander of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force. "The task force will be a coordinated effort between MySpace and
all the attorney general offices
across the country in an effort to compile data throughout the year to track and monitor the successes we hope to see with the implementation of these new safeguards."
All the new policies and procedures are "great safeguards to help us keep our youth safe while utilizing social networking sites; however, with any policy and safeguard in place, none can protect our children 100 percent," Shackelford said.
Parents, Shackelford said, need to "realize they cannot rely solely on this for protecting their child, and they need to make sure and implement their own safeguards within the home."
Shackelford said it is not only adults, who are targeting and trying to exploit children online.
"Other teenagers are using avenues, such as the Internet and cellular phones, to target, bully or entice other youths in their age group," he said.
In Poplar Bluff, and the Southeast Missouri area in general, "our task force has seen an increase in social networking site incidents over the past year," Shackelford said.
Shackelford finds it
"enlightening" to see social networking sites, such as MySpace, work so "diligently with law enforcement to develop policies and safeguards in a joint effort to protect our children while online."
Legal authorities have long been seeking greater controls for networking sites to prevent predators from using them to contact children.
"We thank the attorneys general for a thoughtful and constructive conversation on Internet safety," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a written statement. "This is an industrywide challenge, and we must all work together to create a safer Internet."
He said the agreement includes measures "to provide a safer online experience for teens, and we look forward to sharing our ongoing safety innovations with other companies."
Law enforcement, according to Shackelford, would like to see more social networking sites take these steps to safeguard their users.
Among other measures, MySpace agreed to:
— Allow parents to submit children's e-mail addresses to MySpace to prevent anyone from misusing the addresses to
set up profiles.
— Make the default setting "private" for 16- and 17-yearold users.
— Respond within 72 hours to complaints about inappropriate content and devote more staff and resources to classify photographs and discussion groups.
— Strengthen software to
find underage users.
— Create a high school section for users under 18 years old.
Investigators have increasingly examined MySpace, Facebook.com and other sites where people post information and images and invite contact from other people.
New York investigators said
they set up Facebook profiles
last year as 12- to 14-year olds and were quickly contacted by other users looking for sex.
The multistate investigation of the sites — announced last year — was aimed at putting together measures to protect minors and remove pornographic material, but lawsuits
were possible, officials said.
Article from Southeast Missourian...
MySpace steps up security measures
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
By Bridget DiCosmo ~ Southeast Missourian
In addition, representatives from MySpace and other social networking sites will create broad-based task force to develop age and identity verification software to be implemented on sites like MySpace and Facebook, according to a news release from Nixon's office.
Although local authorities say the new measures are an important step in the right direction, they caution that parental monitoring remains the most effective tool in ensuring the online safety of children and teens.
"No safeguard and no policy can protect a child 100 percent of the time. Parents still need to do their part in knowing what there are doing and who they're talking to," said Detective Jeff Shackelford, agency investigator for the Southeast Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.
Shackelford said the new safety measures MySpace has taken are meant to bolster parental attention, not replace it.
In a prepared statement, Nixon said parents who are actively involved in talking to their children about online activities are the most effective tool in protecting them from online dangers.
The best thing parents can do to protect their children is educate themselves, said Tammy Gwaltney, director of the Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence.
"Speak the language, know what chat rooms are, what a blog is," Gwaltney said.
Gwaltney recommended that parents look at their children's online activities in the same light they'd view them going over to a friends house or to a party and ask just as many questions.
"I don't think people see the Internet as the same kind of social interaction," she said.
Gwaltney said about a half dozen cases her office dealt with in the past year involved social networking sites.
Among other measures, MySpace agreed to:
* Allow parents to submit children's e-mail addresses to MySpace to prevent anyone from misusing the addresses to set up profiles.
* Make the default setting "private" for 16- and 17-year-old users.
* Respond within 72 hours to complaints about inappropriate content and devote more staff and resources to classify photographs and discussion groups.
* Strengthen software to find underage users.
* Create a high school section for users younger than 18.
"We thank the attorneys general for a thoughtful and constructive conversation on Internet safety," MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a written statement. "This is an industrywide challenge, and we must all work together to create a safer Internet."
He said the agreement includes measures "to provide a safer online experience for teens, and we look forward to sharing our ongoing safety innovations with other companies."
MySpace has always been cooperative with law enforcement, and timely in their response to provide subpoenaed information in connection with criminal cases, Shackelford said.
In addition, they were quick in terminating the MySpace accounts of nearly 700 registered sex offenders the Attorney General's office and the Missouri State Highway Patrol found to be using the social networking site.
Investigators have increasingly examined MySpace.com, Facebook.com and other sites where people post information and images and invite contact from other people.
New York investigators said they set up Facebook profiles last year as 12- to 14-year olds and were quickly contacted by other users looking for sex.
All computer related crimes have risen significantly over the past year, Shackelford said.
In particular, "cyberbullying" has risen, where children target others in their own age groups, even classmates or neighbors, and harass one another with obscene photos, videos, or other bully-type behavior, Shackelford said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Article from Vox Magazine...
By Besa Luci
October 4, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
He’s still a cop, but Detective Mark Sullivan is through wearing a uniform. As of Monday, Oct. 1, he needed nothing more than his casual business attire and his passion for technology.
A 10-year veteran of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Sullivan kept the streets safe as a patrol officer and advocated for youth safety as a school resource officer. Now he is the newest member of the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, a law enforcement team that investigates online crimes such as child enticement and pornography. Missouri has four Internet crime task forces, three of which were born in the past year. Columbia’s unit was created at the beginning of this year.
A court trial is a meticulous process; thus the time between charge and conviction can be more than a year. Because of this, the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force has just seen the first conviction as a result of the work it’s done. Last year, before the task force formed, Detective Andy Anderson posed online as a 13-year-old girl and chatted with Raymond Grossich of St. Louis. After the task force’s January inception, it prepared the case for trial, and on Sept. 19, Grossich was found guilty of attempted enticement of a child, first-degree attempted statutory rape and first-degree attempted statutory sodomy. “As for cases initiated by the task force, we’ll see a lot more convictions in about a year would be my guess,” Anderson says.
As part of his transition from street to computer, Sullivan says he will take a more active approach to law enforcement by investigating computer crimes and searching for forensic evidence.
“I love working with technology,” he says. “Now, I’ll be using that love and strength to work and help kids in Columbia and Boone County as part of a task force.”
Among the task force’s initiators is Detective Andy Anderson from the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, who began investigating Internet crime in 1999.
Anderson says that the best parts of this job are that his team can stop crimes before they occur and that children might not be required to testify during trials. He says they have investigated more than 40 cases of child pornography this year.
The task force was formed in January with three members, two from the sheriff’s department and one from the Columbia Police Department. In August, it received a state grant of $146,248 for the addition of a new member. By the end of the six-week application-review period, Sullivan had the job.
This addition would have brought the task force’s members to four, but on Sept. 26, Detective Mike Lederle was redeployed by the Army. Columbia Police Sergeant Ken Hammond says that because they are first filling officer positions in the patrol unions, it will be “quite some time” before they find a replacement.
The greatest challenge for those officers joining Internet crime task forces is that their jobs have no real boundaries. In some ways, tracking criminals online is more challenging then catching them in action.
Lieutenant Joe Laramie, director of the Glendale Police Department Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in Glendale, Mo., says cooperative effort is the best way to conduct online investigations. This might begin with the investigator sitting in front of a computer, move to the officer conducting a home search and then to the detective interviewing the suspect.
“The bottom line for law enforcement is that we must remember it’s still about police work,” says Laramie, who has been working with Glendale’s Internet crime task force since it started in 2003. “It’s just technically challenging police work because of the Internet’s complexity. Much of what happens on the Internet isn’t as easily reported to law enforcement; the crime statistics are harder to get ahold of because many times there is cross jurisdiction dealing with it.”
The mid-Missouri task force also works with local law enforcement agencies in neighboring counties, one of which is SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force of the Poplar Bluff Police Department, which covers southeast Missouri.
Jeff Shackelford, a detective, runs the Poplar Bluff task force. He is involved in both proactive and reactive investigations; he goes undercover and also promotes public education, holds school presentations and talks to community groups, parents and other law-enforcement agencies.
Shackelford says that policing the Internet blurs the boundaries of serving one specific community. “These crimes are different from traditional crimes where people may have to worry about the people that live in their community or in the neighborhood,” he says. “Now, every time you go online, you open yourself to a criminal that’s not just state or nationwide, but you’re opening yourself globally.”
For Shackelford, the biggest difference with being an online cop is that as technology rapidly changes, there is a constant need for updated training. In the traditional aspects of the job, such as robbery or homicide, investigative techniques tend to remain the same.
“It’s a constant battle in keeping up with technology to stay ahead of the criminals,” he says. “It’s a crime that you can’t just walk in and see with your eyes like a burglary.”
For three days last week, around 400 Internet-crime investigators participated in “Protect Our Children,” a training seminar put together by the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss Internet child protections. Among the participants from Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas were Laramie, Shackelford, Sullivan and Anderson.
One case discussed at the training involved a phone call to Laramie from an Internet crime task force member in Ohio. The officer said that he was watching a webcam from a man in Dexter, Mo., and that the man on camera was actively molesting a child. The task force, with the FBI, arrested the perpetrator, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
“That’s just an example of the kinds of things happening all the time,” Laramie says. “Agencies are cooperating through the network.”
For Sullivan, the training has been a great exposure as he is meeting colleagues from across Missouri and neighboring states.
“We have the opportunity to get the training and understanding on how to try something new and different and to see how it can work for the community,” he says. “That’s really who benefits when we learn something new. It benefits the citizens all together.”
Article from Daily American Republic...
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Associate Editor Billy S. Porch
CAPE GIRARDEAU — A Poplar Bluff man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Monday possessing child pornography.
Billy S. Porch
, 35, of the 1300 block of Lela Street was sentenced to on one felony count of possession of child pornography by U.S. District Judge Rodney Sippel, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Abbie Crites-Leoni. Ten years imprisonment reportedly was the maximum punishment Porch
could have received. Upon his release from prison, Crites-Leoni said, Porch
will be placed on a lifetime term of supervised release. “He was remanded to the custody of the (U.S.) Marshals” after he was sentenced, she said.
With his earlier plea, Porch
admitted on Feb. 12 law enforcement officers executed
a search warrant at his Lela Street residence, where he lived alone. Porch
reportedly believed the officers were there
because of his involvement with trading child pornography on the Internet.
As a result of the execution of the search warrant, the officers discovered Porch
possessed a number of computers and multiple hard drives. One - edly contained more than 600 still image files of child pornography, specifically images
of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Furthermore, some of the images reportedly contained sadistic or masochistic conduct and children under the age of 12.
During a subsequent interview, Porch
admitted he possessed child pornography. He also reportedly stated he had been using the shareware Internet Relay Chat client, “mIRC,” to receive and send images of child pornography for some time. Porch
also is charged with the unclassified felony of firstdegree statutory sodomy and the Class D felony of incest in Butler County.
His case is set for trial at 9
a.m. Nov. 15 before Presiding Circuit Judge Mark Richardson. A pretrial conference also is set for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 30.
an investigation conducted by
Poplar Bluff Police Officer Jeff
Shackelford, which began on
Feb. 7 when he was contacted
by an investigator with the Grafton City Police Department in Illinois.
The investigator, Mike Weber, supplied Shackelford with copies of an “online chat between (Weber), acting in an undercover capacity, and the suspect, Billy
S. Porch,” Shackelford said in his probable cause affidavit onfiile with the Butler County court. “In these chat logs, the suspect wrote in detail about how he had sodomized” the 12-yearold victim.
Shackelford said he obtained a search warrant for Porch’s residence which was executed on Feb. 12. Computer equipment reportedly was among the items seized from the residence.
After being told of his rights, Porch
subsequently was interviewed, Shackelford said. “ … the suspect stated, under Miranda, that sometime during the month of November 2006, he did, in fact, sodomize (the victim),” Shackelford said. “Porch
admitted that this inci-… ” Porch
, according to Shackelford, provided details about the alleged acts. The alleged victim also was interviewed, Shackelford said. “ … Her account of the incident was very similar to the account of the suspect’s,” he said.
Article from Daily American Republic...
CAPE GIRARDEAU — A Hazelwood man pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to possessing child pornography.
Brian M. Keiper
, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography before U.S. District Judge Jean Hamilton, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Hamilton set sentencing for Feb. 25. At that time, Keiper
faces a maximum of 10 years a ,
fine with the court imposing a
period of supervised release up to life.
The charges against Keiper
stem from an investigation, which began in early February, by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and resulted in Keiper’s arrest in Poplar Bluff and the execution of a search warrant at his home on March 15. Keiper’s computer, along with computer discs, webcam and other associated items, were seized and forensically examined by the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group.
Forensic analysis of Keiper’s computer and floppy discs reportedly revealed Keiper
possessed more than 300 image files of child pornography, that
is images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Furthermore, according to
the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
some of the images contained sadistic and masochistic conduct and some of the images involved children under the age of 12.
Keiper
also is charged with an unclassified felony of attempted enticement of a child in Butler County. He is to appear at 9 a.m. Dec. 27 before Senior Judge James Hall for plea or trial setting in his case. The charge stems from an “undercover, online investigation,” Shackelford said at the time of Keiper’s March arrest.
“During the course of the investigation, (Keiper
) indicated his willingness and desire to make arrangements to travel to Poplar Bluff for an encounter of a sexual nature with a presumed 14-year-old female,” said Shackelford, who is coordinator for the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force. At one point, Shackelford said, Keiper
allegedly transmitted a “real-time video feed via a computer webcam to the presumed 14-year-old girl, which depicted the suspect performing a sexual act.” A meeting was arranged between Keiper
and the presumed teenage girl. Surveillance teams comprised of officers with the police
department, SEMO Drug Task Force and the Hazelwood Police Department located Keiper
entering the city limits of Poplar Bluff, Shackelford said. “(Keiper
) was followed to a predetermined location where the suspect thought he was going to meet the presumed 14-year-old female,” Shackelford explained. Upon Keiper’s arrival at that location, he was arrested without incident.
Keiper
was taken to the police station, where he was told of his rights and agreed to speak with officers.
According to Shackelford, Keiper