Faces at Least 15 Years in Prison
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a convicted sex offender in Monett, Mo., pleaded guilty in federal court today to receiving child pornography over the Internet.
Carl Donald Greiner, 37, of Monett, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to the charge contained in a July 20, 2016, federal indictment.
Greiner was convicted of possessing child pornography, sexual misconduct and furnishing pornographic material to a minor in 2004. He was also convicted of statutory rape and two counts of statutory sodomy in 2006.
According to today’s plea agreement, a person using Greiner’s computer reported to police officers on April 30, 2016, that she saw a large amount of child pornography on the computer located in his bedroom, including videos of children ranging in age from 4 to 17. Officers executed a search warrant at Greiner’s residence the same day and seized his desktop computer along with an address book with Internet addresses.
Investigators discovered multiple images and videos of child pornography on Greiner’s computer that had been downloaded from the Internet.
Under federal statutes, Greiner 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 Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cybercrimes Task Force and the Monett, 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."
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
