NEWS RELEASE

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI

BETH PHILLIPS

Contact Don Ledford, Public Affairs ● (816) 426-4220 ● 400 East Ninth Street, Room 5510 ● Kansas City, MO 64106

www.usdoj.gov../index.html

JUNE 2, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD

BLUE SPRINGS MAN SENTENCED FOR

POSSESSING CHILD PORN

            KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Blue Springs, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for possessing child pornography.

            David Anthony Dunn, 21, of Blue Springs, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple this morning to six years in federal prison without parole.

            On Jan. 4, 2010, Dunn pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.

            On July 31, 2008, following a tip sent to the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children, members of the FBI Cybercrimes Task Force contacted Dunn at his residence. During that interview, Dunn admitted to the officers that, using a computer at the residence, he had uploaded, downloaded, viewed and saved images of child pornography. Dunn said that since 2001 he had searched for and downloaded child pornography by, among other methods, joining several Internet groups in which child pornography was traded. Dunn said he had saved his child pornography onto two DVDs.

            Dunn’s computer hard drives and the DVDs contained multiple images and videos of child pornography, including depictions of bondage and other types of violence, as well as victims under the age of 12 years.

            This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Fincham. It was investigated by the FBI and the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Project Safe Childhood

            This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. 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.

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This news release, as well as additional information about the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is available on-line at

http://www.justice.gov../index.html