Springfield Man Sentenced to 24 Years in Prison for Child Exploitation

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for the sexual exploitation of a minor.

Ezra Robert Gramm, 40, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Greg Kays to 24 years and five months in federal prison without parole, followed by lifetime supervised release. The court ordered the federal sentence to be served consecutively to a state sentence of 18 years for the attempted enticement of a child in Greene County, Mo.

Gramm, who pleaded guilty on May 13, 2013, admitted that he made contact with the 13-year-old victim, identified as “Jane Doe,” via an Internet chat room in late 2009. Gramm and the child victim engaged in online chat sessions and exchanged text messages with one another. During the course of this interaction, Gramm asked Jane Doe to take sexually explicit photographs of herself and transmit the photographs to him.  Jane Doe complied with his request.

Gramm’s cell phone was seized by law enforcement officers and found to contain multiple images of Jane Doe engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Jane Doe was interviewed and acknowledged taking the digital images of herself and transmitting them to Gramm at his request.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Kelleher. It was investigated by the Springfield, Mo., Police Department.

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."