KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Randers, Denmark man pleaded guilty in federal court today to producing and transporting child pornography and to extortion.

Kai Lundstroem Pedersen, 61, a citizen of Denmark, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Larsen to the charges contained in a Sept. 29, 2010, federal indictment.

In July 2010, Pedersen engaged in an online chat from his home in Denmark, via webcam, with an 11-year-old girl in Buchanan County, Mo., identified as Jane Doe #1. Pedersen admitted that he used her to engage in sexually explicit conduct that he recorded and saved as a digital video on his computer. This video, as well as the screen capture images made from the video, were later edited and distributed to others, including family and friends of the victim.

Pedersen contacted Jane Doe #1 using various aliases through e-mail and chat programs from July to September 2010, threatening her and attempting to have her engage in sexually explicit conduct. For example, on Aug. 15, 2010, Pedersen used a half-dozen different aliases on Facebook to contact Jane Doe #1, relaying rape and murder fantasies and asserting that these various individuals had watched her video, describing the various sexual acts they wanted to perform on her.

In August 2010, Pedersen initiated contact with another minor female in rural Missouri, whom he believed to be a close friend of Jane Doe #1. Pedersen contacted this victim, identified as Jane Doe #2, in an effort to exert pressure to have either Jane Doe #1 or Jane Doe #2 perform sexually explicit conduct for him via video web-chatting.

Pedersen was arrested when he traveled from Denmark to the United States last year. On Aug. 13, 2010, Jane Doe #1’s mother contacted law enforcement authorities. The mother told an officer that she learned of the contact with Pedersen after receiving Facebook messages that contained nude images of her daughter. The officer, posing as the minor victim, communicated online with Pedersen and learned that he was leaving on vacation Aug. 20. When Pedersen logged into his Facebook account on Aug. 25, investigators were able to trace his IP address to a residence in Stonybrook, N.Y.

Under the terms of the binding plea agreement, the government and Pedersen jointly recommend to the court a sentence of at least 15 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 30 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 Patrick D. Daly and Trial Attorney Keith Becker of the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section. It was investigated by the Buchanan County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

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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