project safe childhood
Independence man pleads guilty to child porn
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that an Independence, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to receiving child pornography over the Internet.
John H. O’Leary, 64, of Independence, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs to the charge contained in a Nov. 19, 2010, federal indictment.
According to today’s plea agreement, O’Leary offered to pay neighborhood children $40 to pose without their shirts on and to model thong underwear. The children also stated that they had seen child pornography in his living room. Independence police officers executed a search warrant at O’Leary’s residence and seized two computers, electronic storage media, tapes, a camera, photos of child pornography, cartoons depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, a bag with women’s lingerie, and a toy doll with drawn-in nipples and pubic hair.
O’Leary admitted that he began looking at child pornography about a year earlier. He told law enforcement officers that he surfed the Internet and visited approximately 20 child pornography Web sites and printed approximately 30 pages of child pornography with multiple images per page.
Under federal statutes, O’Leary is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 20 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $250,000. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. It was investigated by the Independence, Mo., Police Department.
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.
