Springfield Sex Offender Pleads Guilty to Child Porn

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a registered sex offender in Springfield, Mo., pleaded guilty in federal court today to receiving and distributing child pornography over the Internet.

Frank A. Kuhn, 52, of Springfield, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to the charge contained in a Jan. 18, 2017, federal indictment. Kuhn was convicted of the deviate sexual assault of a 15-year-old victim in 1994 in Newton County, Mo.

According to court documents, investigators received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding four images of child pornography reported by Yahoo! employees. Kuhn was identified as the user responsible for transmitting the images.

On Nov. 29, 2016, officers executed a search warrant at Kuhn’s residence and seized computers, digital storage media and phones. Investigators found multiple images of child pornography on the digital storage devices.

Under federal statutes, Kuhn is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 40 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Kelleher. It was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the Springfield, Mo., Police Department and the Greene County, Mo., Sheriff’s 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."