ST. LOUIS - United States District Court Judge Stephen R. Clark accepted a plea of guilty from Andrew Hotchkiss on today’s date for the production of child pornography. A grand jury in the Eastern District of Missouri previously indicted Hotchkiss for the charge.
Between the dates of March 1, 2019 and May 13, 2019 in St. Francois County, Missouri, Hotchkiss sexually abused the victim, who was six years of age at the time. Hotchkiss used his cellular telephone to video record and produce images of his sexual abuse of the victim.
Hotchkiss distributed the images and videos of his sexual abuse of the minor via the internet to one or more others including a resident of the State of Oregon. On May 13, 2019, law enforcement officers with the Oregon State Police located the above-reference images and videos on a cellular telephone belonging to the Oregon resident who was in police custody after attempting to meet an eleven-year-old for sexual contact. It was the Oregon State Police investigation and their recovery of the images and videos produced by Hotchkiss that initiated the investigation that gave rise to the charges against Hotchkiss in this case.
The case was investigated by the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department and the United States Secret Service.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
