Plattsmouth Man Sentenced to 25 Years for Distributing Child Pornography

Acting United States Attorney Jan W. Sharp announced that Juan Burnell, age 34, of Plattsmouth, Nebraska, was sentenced in federal court on Friday, August 13, 2021, in Omaha, Nebraska.  Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter sentenced Burnell to 25 years of imprisonment for distributing child pornography.  After completing his term of imprisonment, Burnell will begin a 15-year term of supervised release. 

On June 20, 2020, Burnell used his Instagram account to upload an image of child pornography to the internet.  On October 13, 2020, law enforcement obtained the contents of Burnell’s Google account.  The Google account contained five videos of child pornography.  Burnell was already a registered sex offender and had been convicted of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse in Benton County, Iowa (2005) and third degree sexual assault of a child in Buffalo County, Nebraska (2011).  In imposing the sentence, Chief Judge Rossiter stated that Burnell was “a danger to our children.”

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 Attorney’s 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.

The case was investigated by the Nebraska State Patrol.