Springfield Man Sentenced to 12 Years for Child Pornography

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Springfield, Mo., man who collected hundreds of thousands of images of child pornography over the past decade was sentenced in federal court today.
 
David William Ray, 40, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to 12 years in federal prison without parole.

On April 5, 2017, Ray pleaded guilty to receiving and distributing child pornography between Oct. 17, 2016, and Jan. 26, 2017. 

According to court documents, Ray came to the attention of law enforcement because he was uploading child pornography to Skype. Ray told investigators that he would pose as a single father who was sending sexually explicit images of his daughters in order to trade images of child pornography with other users on KIK and Skype.

Ray, who was actively engaged in trading, downloading, and viewing child pornography for the past decade, amassed well over 500,000 images and videos of child pornography. Ray told investigators that he was addicted to child pornography.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crime 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."