SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A former youth minister in Joplin, Mo., was sentenced in federal courtroom at the moment for exchanging pornographic photographs and movies with a toddler sufferer.
Nicholas Lane Stephens, 25, was sentenced by U.S. District Choose M. Douglas Harpool to 6 years in federal jail with out parole. The courtroom additionally sentenced Stephens to fifteen years of supervised launch following incarceration.
On March 15, 2022, Stephens pleaded responsible to receiving and distributing baby pornography. Stephens was previously the youth minister at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Joplin.
The investigation started when a Youngsters’s Division investigator obtained a hotline name reporting that Stephens, a volunteer on the church, was concerned in inappropriate relationships with minor females on the church, together with the 17-year-old sufferer recognized in courtroom paperwork as “Jane Doe.”
Jane Doe informed investigators she despatched nude photographs to Stephens by way of Snapchat in December 2019. Stephens despatched Jane Doe a number of pornographic photographs of himself, in addition to pornographic FaceTime movies. Examiners found a dozen photographs and one video of kid pornography of Jane Doe on Stephens’s cellular phone. There have been additionally quite a few messages between Jane Doe and Stephens.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Legal professional Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the FBI, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Job Power, and the Joplin, Mo., Police Division.
Challenge Secure Childhood
This case was introduced as a part of Challenge Secure Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in Could 2006 by the Division of Justice to fight the rising epidemic of kid sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the US Attorneys’ Workplaces and the Felony Division’s Baby Exploitation and Obscenity Part, Challenge Secure Childhood marshals federal, state, and native assets to find, apprehend, and prosecute people who sexually exploit youngsters, and to establish and rescue victims. For extra details about Challenge Secure Childhood, please go to www.usdoj.gov/psc . For extra details about Web security training, please go to www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on on the tab “assets.”
