Registered Sex Offender Sentenced to 30 Years For Producing Child Pornography With A 4-Year Old
A registered sex offender who took sexually explicit photographs of a four-year old girl in East
St. Louis will spend the next three decades behind bars. Andrew Wigfall, III, of East St. Louis has
been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for
producing child pornography. The 47-year old defendant pleaded guilty to the charge earlier this
year.
Wigfall’s crime first came to light on Jan. 26, 2019, when numerous local law enforcement agencies
received calls that his Facebook Messenger account was distributing child pornography. Among the
illicit photographs were images of Wigfall with a nude four-year old girl. The child’s grandmother
saw the pictures and recognized they had been taken in her basement. She explained to police that
Wigfall was a friend who often came over to her house to play dominoes with her husband when they
were babysitting their grandchildren. She reported that neither she nor her husband had any idea
the photographs had been taken, and they were unaware at the time that Wigfall was a registered sex
offender.
When interviewed by police, Wigfall admitted taking explicit photographs of the girl with his cell
phone just a few weeks earlier. He told investigators he had lost his phone on Jan. 25 and was not
the person responsible for distributing the images over Facebook. Efforts by law enforcement to
track and locate the phone were unsuccessful.
At the sentencing hearing, the victim’s grandmother expressed outrage on behalf of the family: “I
never thought this would happen to us. I’m supposed to protect my children and grandchildren. But
my trust was betrayed…. [Wigfall] wasn’t there to be my husband’s friend. He was there to seek out
my granddaughter.” She added that her husband feels “like it’s all his fault” and that he
constantly “apologizes to me that he let this man into our home.”
In handing down the sentence, Chief United States District Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel explained
that a 30-year term was necessary to protect the public, specifically citing Wigfall’s history of
sexual offending. Wigf ll has a prior conviction in St. Clair County Circuit Court for
aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
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.usdoj.gov/psc.
For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on
the tab “resources.”
The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the East St. Louis Police
Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Laura Reppert.