U.S. Department
of Justice
Press Release
Carl Junction Man Pleads Guilty to Child Porn, Faces 25 Years in Prison
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Missouri
Project Safe Childhood
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Carl Junction, Mo., man pleaded guilty in federal court today to receiving child pornography over the Internet.
James Lee Hagerman, 50, of Carl Junction, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to a federal information that charges him with two counts of receiving child pornography.
An officer with the Southwest Missouri Cybercrimes Task Force was conducting an online investigation into the sharing of child pornography on April 24, 2012, when he identified Hagerman’s computer as sharing over 100 files of child pornography through a peer-to-peer file-sharing program. The officer downloaded three of the files and determined that they contained depictions of children as young as two to four years of age engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Hagerman’s apartment and seized his computer. Hagerman told officers that he had approximately 1,000 child pornography videos stored on his computer.
Under the terms of today’s binding plea agreement, Hagerman will be sentenced to 25 years in federal prison without parole. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Kelleher. It was investigated by the FBI and the Southwest Missouri Cybercrimes 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."Updated January 16, 2015
Component