Registered Sex Offender Sentenced for New Sex Crimes

BOISE - William Clarence Brower, 51, of Hazelton, Idaho, was sentenced yesterday by Chief United States District Judge B. Lynn Winmill to 110 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, for two counts of transfer of obscene images to minors and possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced.  Brower pled guilty on November 25, 2014.

According to the plea agreement, the investigation began in February 2014, when the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) received a request for assistance from the Massachusetts State Police regarding an unknown adult male using the social media website “Kik” messenger to send photographs of an erect penis to a 10-year-old female in Massachusetts.  An undercover detective took over the child’s online identity and made the suspect aware that “she” was 10 years old.  The suspect replied, “C00000l.  I don't mind that you are so young,” followed by sexually explicit comments.   After having learned he was communicating with a ten-year-old, the suspect continued to send similar pictures and sexual comments directed at the child.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated investigation, sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County, Arizona, received a complaint from a family in Mesa, Arizona, that their 13-year-old daughter had been receiving unsolicited sexually explicit text messages from an unknown individual using “Kik” messenger.  The messages were accompanied by images of an erect penis.   The investigators in Massachusetts and Arizona independently developed information suggesting that an individual with last name Brower in Hazelton, Idaho, was responsible.

According to the plea agreement, Idaho ICAC investigators learned that the suspect, William Clarence Brower, of Hazelton, is a registered sex offender.  He had been convicted in 2008 of felony indecent exposure in Twin Falls County.  They served a search warrant at Brower’s residence on February 21, 2014.  A forensic examiner found more than 24,000 digital images considered relevant to the investigation on Brower’s cell phone.  These included pictures depicting child pornography, child erotica, images of a male subject wearing female undergarments, numerous images of a male exposing his penis, and non-pornographic images of numerous young females that appear to have been obtained through a social media application or web site.  Brower was interviewed and took responsibility for using his cell phone to send using “Kik” messenger hundreds of sexually explicit photos of himself to random persons, most of whom he knew were under the age of 18.  Brower also admitted that he possessed images and videos of child pornography.

The case was investigated by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the Boise Police Department, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, the Department of State Police of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Jerome County Sheriff’s Department.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc.  For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”