U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry sentenced Patrick Mayberry, a registered sex offender, to 17 years in prison for possessing child pornography. Mayberry, aged 46 and from High Ridge, admitted to selling child pornography online for over $2,000, obtained from the dark web. Authorities found multiple videos with child sexual abuse material in his MEGA cloud-storage account.
The case started with a CyberTipline report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, indicating that Mayberry had uploaded abusive material to his Google account. Mayberry pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography as a prior offender in November at the U.S. District Court in St. Louis.
At the time of the offense, Mayberry was on probation and is a registered sex offender. His criminal history includes a 2021 conviction for failing to register as a sex offender in Missouri, a 2008 conviction for attempting to procure child pornography, and a 2003 conviction for second-degree rape involving a victim under 16 in Oklahoma.
The investigation was conducted by the St. Louis County Police Department and the FBI, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuting the case. This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice aimed at curbing child sexual exploitation and abuse. Project Safe Childhood was launched in May 2006 to enhance efforts to investigate, apprehend, and prosecute offenders, and to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
