NEWS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

JOHN F. WOOD

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

JANUARY 21, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ST. JOSEPH RESTAURANT OWNER PLEADS GUILTY

TO DISTRIBUTING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

            KANSAS CITY, Mo. – John F. Wood, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that the owner of a St. Joseph, Mo., restaurant pleaded guilty in federal court today to distributing child pornography over the Internet.

            Eddie Dean Randall, 58, of St. Joseph, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple this morning to a federal information that charges him with one count of distributing child pornography. Randall is the co-owner of Ford’s Drive In restaurant in St. Joseph.

            Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, the government and the defendant agreed to ask the court for a sentence of 13 years in federal prison without parole. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

            Randall admitted that he downloaded child pornography from the Internet, using LimeWire and other file-sharing programs on his computer. Randall saved videos and images of child pornography in a shared folder that would allow other users of the LimeWire program to both access and download it onto their computer from Randall’s hard drive.

            On May 5, 2006, an FBI special agent in Miami, Fla., who was conducting an undercover investigation using the LimeWire program, conducted a search for files with file names that contained the term “pedo” or were cataloged with the term “pedo” – a term known to be associated with images of child pornography. The FBI special agent received a response from Randall’s computer, and downloaded six videos from Randall’s hard drive. Four of those videos depicted child pornography.

            Randall also used the file-sharing program Kazaa to download and share child pornography. When law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Randall’s residence, he had images of child pornography in his Kazaa shared folder, which were available for sharing over the Internet to other individuals using the Kazaa program.

            By pleading guilty today, Randall agreed to forfeit to the government two desktop computers, a laptop computer, six computer hard drives, 119 CDs, 105 floppy diskettes, memory sticks and other media that were used to commit the offense.

            This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Hiller. It was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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This news release, as well as additional information about the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is available on-line at

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