Winner Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Federal Prison in Child Sex Trafficking Case

PIERRE - United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced today that U.S. District Judge Eric C. Schulte has sentenced a man and a woman, both from Winner, South Dakota, following their convictions in a case charging Sex Trafficking of a Child and Production of Child Pornography.

Richard Alan Kucera, age 67, was found guilty of two counts of Sex Trafficking of a Child and two counts of Production of Child Pornography following a four-day federal jury trial in July 2025. On October 20, 2025, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $400 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund.

Ivy Rose Heron, age 37, pleaded guilty on April 9, 2025, to one count of Conspiracy to Engage in Sex Trafficking of a Child.  On October 21, 2025, she was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund.

Kucera and Heron were indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2023.

At trial, the evidence established that between 2019 and 2021, Kucera and Heron entered into an agreement to recruit local girls in the Winner area to engage in sexual activity with Kucera in exchange for payment.  Heron received a fee for each girl she recruited whom Kucera selected. Between 2020 and 2021, Heron recruited two sixteen-year-old girls, each of whom Kucera paid to engage in sexual activity on multiple occasions.  Kucera also created child pornography images and videos of both minor victims, which he uploaded to Facebook.  The arrangement between Kucera and Heron was discovered in June 2022, when the minor victims were interviewed by law enforcement.

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 the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Albertson prosecuted the case.

Kucera and Heron were immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.