Stilwell Resident Sentenced For Possessing Child Sexual Exploitation Material

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Geoff Edward Luethje, age 47, of Stilwell, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 97 months in prison for one count of Possession of Certain Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor.  The imprisonment will be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.

The charge arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Residence Agencies in Atlanta, Georgia, and Muskogee, Oklahoma.

On June 18, 2024, Luethje pleaded guilty to the charge.  As part of that plea, Luethje admitted to knowingly possessing, and accessing with an intent to view, visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, including depictions of children under the age of twelve, between April 28, 2023, and August 3, 2023.

According to investigators, in July of 2023, Special Agents were alerted to Luethje’s activity in an online community dedicated to distributing child sexual abuse material.  An investigation and subsequent search of Luethje’s electronic devices and cell phone revealed that Luethje possessed over 27,000 images depicting the sexual abuse of children.

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 the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

We encourage anyone who suspects or has information regarding child sexual exploitation, trafficking of minors, sextortion, child pornography, or any other means of child exploitation to immediately contact law enforcement.  You can file a report through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) at 1-800-843-5678 or online at www.cybertipline.com, through the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or through Homeland Security Investigations at 1-877-4-HSI TIP.

The Honorable John F. Heil, III, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing.  Luethje will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Caila M. Cleary represented the United States.