Boonville man charged with producing child porn;
photographed with 9-year-old at motel
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a Boonville, Mo., man has been charged in federal court with producing child pornography. Law enforcement officers discovered sexually explicit photographs of several men and a 9-year-old child taken at a motel room in Boonville, Mo.
Matthew L. Klopfenstine, 32, of Boonville, was charged in a federal criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, Mo., on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010. Klopfenstine was arrested today and is scheduled for an initial court appearance on Monday, Aug. 9, 2010, at the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Mo.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, law enforcement officers were executing a search warrant at a residence in Troy, Mo., in an unrelated case when they discovered two computer hard drives that contained numerous images of child pornography. Among the computer files were pornographic images of a 9-year-old child that apparently were taken at a Super 8 Motel in Boonville.
Klopfenstine and two other men are depicted in various photographs, the affidavit says. Digital stamping indicates the images were likely taken on June 9, 2009. The two other men have been charged in the Eastern District of Missouri and the Northern District of Illinois.
Phillips cautioned that the charge contained in this complaint is simply an accusation, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charge must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Lynn. It was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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.
