NEWS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

MATT J. WHITWORTH

Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106

www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/index.html

MARCH 12, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD

MILAN MAN SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON

FOR PRODUCING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Milan, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for producing child pornography.

Carol Danny Phillips, 55, of Milan, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright this morning to 25 years in federal prison without parole.

On Aug. 21, 2008, Phillips pleaded guilty to taking multiple digital photographs of a 12-year-old girl, identified as “Jane Doe,” in sexually explicit poses sometime in the late summer or early fall of 2003. Phillips directed Jane Doe to strip and to pose in this fashion, against her wishes, for the purpose of creating the photographs.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Fincham. It was investigated by the Sullivan County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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