Florissant Man Sentenced to 170 Months on Child Pornography Charge

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey on Thursday sentenced a man caught with child sexual abuse material, including material that he had produced or solicited, to 170 months in prison.

Patrick Neistat, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, pleaded guilty in October to one count of receipt of child pornography. He admitted possessing images and videos containing child sexual abuse material on multiple cellular phones.

The investigation began on Sept. 8, 2022, when St. Louis County Police Department detectives received an exigent Cyber Tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) indicating that the user of a Skout social media account had uploaded multiple images depicting the sexual abuse of a  minor. Detectives traced the account to Neistat’s home. Neistat initially denied having a cellular phone. Detectives learned that he did, and seized the phone. 
    
Neistat had 123 images and 4 videos of child pornography on one phone, as well as 187 images and 18 videos of “age difficult” pornography and 634 CGI/animated images depicting children in sexual acts, his plea agreement says. He also had videos of himself touching a 5-year-old. On a second phone, investigators found 12 images containing CSAM as well as sexually explicit conversations and explicit photos that Neistat had received from a 12-year-old girl and an apparent 14-year-old girl.

The FBI and the St. Louis County Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hayes prosecuted the case.

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 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.justice.gov/psc.