Skip to main content
Press Release

Joplin Man Sentenced for Child Porn

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Missouri
Project Safe Childhood

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Joplin, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for possessing child pornography.

 

Donald Eugene Ruddick, 39, of Joplin, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to six years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Ruddick to pay $2,500 in restitution to each of two victims. Following incarceration, Ruddick will serve a 15-year term of supervised release.

 

On June 4, 2015, Ruddick pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography. Ruddick admitted that he used a peer-to-peer file-sharing program to download child pornography over the Internet.

 

On Dec. 26, 2012, law enforcement officers identified Ruddick’s computer as sharing child pornography with other computers. Officers executed a search warrant at Ruddick’s residence and seized a desktop computer, a laptop computer and compact disks.

 

According to court documents, forensic examiners discovered a library of child pornography on Ruddick’s computers that included hundreds of images and hundreds of additional videos depicting children and toddlers being raped and sexually abused, many of which were in excess of five minutes in length. Ruddick possessed material depicting the sadistic and masochistic abuse of children, including the sexual violation of toddlers and children being forced to engage in sex with dogs and horses.

 

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Carney. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.

 

Project Safe Childhood

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."

Updated November 3, 2015

Topic
Project Safe Childhood