Niobrara Man Sentenced for Sexual Abuse of a Child

United States Attorney Jan Sharp announced that Warren Lee Mackey, 68, of Niobrara, Nebraska, was sentenced on January 27, 2022, by Senior United States District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon to 30 years’ imprisonment for aggravated sexual abuse of a child and 10 years’ imprisonment for sexual abuse of a child, to be served concurrently. Mackey will be on supervised release for 5 years after his release from prison. There is no parole in the federal system.

A jury found Mackey guilty in October 2021 for an offense that occurred on the Santee Sioux Nation Indian Reservation.  The charges stemmed from a disclosure made by an 11-year-old child that the defendant touched her clitoris and her breast. The defendant claimed during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he was asleep and did not know whether he had done anything to the child, but was dreaming about an adult female.

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.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.