Carl Junction Woman Pleads Guilty to Child Porn after Posting Images on Victim's Facebook

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Carl Junction, Mo., woman pleaded guilty in federal court today to possessing child pornography after she posted nude photos of a 15-year-old victim on the victim’s Facebook page.

Michelle Renee McCoy, 49, of Carl Junction, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to possessing child pornography.

According to today’s plea agreement, McCoy took an iPhone 5C from the 15-year-old victim after an argument on March 28, 2014. The victim was contacted by her cousin on May 14, 2014, to let her know that there were nude pictures of her on her Facebook page. Multiple friends and family members called the victim regarding the nude photos they saw on her Facebook page. The images, which portrayed the victim in a variety of sexually explicit poses, had been taken when she was 14 or 15 and saved on her iPhone.

The victim was unable to log into her account as the password had been changed. The victim was able to shut down the account after resetting her password.

Carl Junction police officers contacted McCoy, who admitted she had the victim’s iPhone but refused to give the phone to law enforcement. Officers later received a search warrant for McCoy’s residence and seized an Apple MacBook Pro laptop, an Apple iPad and three Apple iPhones, including the victim’s phone.

Investigators learned that, two weeks before taking away the victim’s iPhone, McCoy had asked to see her phone so she could run an update on it. McCoy discovered the nude photos of the victim on the victim’s phone and sent them to her own iPhone 5S, where she saved them to her camera roll. Investigators found the child pornography images on McCoy’s iPhone and on McCoy’s MacBook Pro laptop. They also discovered that the victim’s phone had been backed up to McCoy’s laptop less than 15 minutes after police officers had been at McCoy’s residence and asked her for the phone.

McCoy’s daughter told law enforcement officers that McCoy had shown her the nude pictures of the victim that were on her cell phone. She said McCoy was showing the pictures at a family gathering. McCoy also told her daughter that she had the pictures on her laptop. After the photos were posted on Facebook, McCoy told her daughter that she had posted the pictures and changed the victim’s Facebook password so she would not be able to take them down.

Under federal statutes, McCoy is subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

McCoy must forfeit to the government the Apple iPhone and Apple MacBook Pro laptop that were used to commit the offense.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Republic, Mo., Police Department, the Carl Junction, Mo., Police Department, and the Southwest Missouri Cybercrime Task Force.

Project Safe Childhood

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."