sioux city man pleads guilty to creating child porn
Contact: Peter Deegan
A man who sexually exploited a child by taking child pornography pictures pled guilty on March 9, 2010, in federal court in Sioux City.
Sengkeo Phanaphay, age 47, from Sioux City, Iowa, was convicted of one count of sexual exploitation of a child.
At the plea hearing, Phanaphay admitted that, between April 2009 and June 2009, in his Sioux City residence, he created child pornography by taking sexually explicit photographs of an eight year-old boy.
Sentencing before United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Phanaphay remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Phanaphay faces a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment, a maximum fine of $250,000, a $100 special assessment, and supervised release for 5 years to life following any imprisonment.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Sioux City Police 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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 09-4035.
