SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a registered sex offender in Joplin, Mo., has been sentenced in federal court for receiving child pornography over the Internet.

Brandy Andrew Hertl, 31, of Joplin, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard E. Dorr on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 to 20 years in federal prison without parole, which is the maximum statutory penalty for that offense.

On June 21, 2012 Hertl pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography. Hertl is a registered sex offender, convicted of indecent liberties with a 3-year-old female in 2009.

Hertl was arrested when law enforcement officers conducted a sex offender compliance round-up in Joplin on May 1, 2012. When a Jasper County deputy arrived at Hertl’s residence, he saw Hertl sitting in the front seat of a van parked in front of the residence, in possession of a laptop computer. The deputy asked what he was doing and Hertl admitted that he had been downloading child pornography files on his computer.

Hertl stated that he was living in the van and had been using his sister’s wireless Internet connection from the house to download files. Hertl stated that when the officers approached him he was in the process of downloading videos of child pornography. During a forensic examination of Hertl’s laptop computer, investigators videos and images of child pornography.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall D. Eggert. It was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Jasper County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department and the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.

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