Judge sentences St. Louis man to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography

ST. LOUIS – David Whitener, age 30, of St. Louis, Missouri, appeared before United States District Court Judge Ronnie L. White on today’s date.  Based on a previous plea of guilty, Whitener was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography as a prior offender to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release.  

According to court documents, Whitener was convicted in 2016, in the Circuit Court of St. Louis for promoting child pornography and possession of child pornography and was sentenced to five (5) years in the Missouri Department of Corrections.  On or about September 23, 2019, Whitener uploaded via the internet ten (10) videos and seven (7) images depicting child sexual abuse to a social media application. 

Law enforcement executed a search warrant at the residence of Whitener, located in the City of St. Louis.  The search revealed Whitener to have possessed a cellular telephone that contained seventeen (17) videos and hundreds of images of child sexual abuse depicting child pornography involving minors.   Whitener also possessed a Dropbox internet-based cloud storage account in which he knowingly stored and possessed forty-five (45) videos and twenty-one (21) images of child pornography. 

This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations.