Lake Mills Man Pleads Guilty To Distributing And Receiving Child Pornography

A man who distributed and received child pornography pled guilty on September 25, 2013, in federal court in Sioux City.

Daniel Mines, age 39, from Lake Mills, was convicted of one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of receipt of child pornography.

At the plea hearing, Mines admitted that, between October 2010 and March 2011, he distributed and received child pornography. In a plea agreement, Mines admitted he used cell phones to trade child pornography with others.

Sentencing before United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Mines was taken into custody by the United States Marshal after the guilty plea and will remain in custody pending sentencing. Mines faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, a $200 special assessment, and supervised release for 5 years to life following his imprisonment.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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.”

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 13-3017.