Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Springfield man sentenced to 20 years for sexual exploitation of a child

(From the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri)

A Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for the sexual exploitation of a child.

Ryan Lee Christoph, 26, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to 20 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Christoph to spend the rest of his life on supervised release following incarceration.

On June 27, 2018, Christoph pleaded guilty to the sexual exploitation of a child.

On Aug. 15, 2017, Springfield police officers responded to a report that an individual had found Christoph and a 14-year-old female engaged in sexual activity. The victim told investigators that she and Christoph had been in a sexual relationship since before Christmas 2016.



On Oct. 20, 2017, Facebook reported that child pornography was being exchanged by Christoph and the same child victim in chat sessions in Facebook Messenger between May 7 and Aug. 11, 2017. Images and videos depicted Christoph engaged in sexual activity with the child victim. During the messages, Christoph asked the child victim to send him sexually explicit pictures and videos. Investigators located numerous video files of child pornography that depicted the child victim and Christoph engaged in sexually explicit activity.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the Springfield, Mo., Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

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