John Anthony Carpenter, Child Sexual Exploitation, Missouri 2024

A Lebanon man has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison without parole for sexually exploiting children from several different countries.

John Anthony Carpenter, 43, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to 25 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Carpenter to 25 years of supervised release following incarceration and ordered him to pay $15,000 in restitution to his victims.

Carpenter will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison and will be subject to federal and state sex offender registration requirements, which may apply throughout his life.

Carpenter pleaded guilty to one count of the sexual exploitation of children on January 30, 2024.

Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Carpenter’s residence on April 13, 2022, in relation to two separate child sexual exploitation investigations in Connecticut and New Jersey.

Officers located Carpenter at his place of employment and he turned over two cell phones to investigators. Carpenter admitted to viewing child pornography, sending child pornography, and soliciting child pornography from multiple victims.

Carpenter sent Robux (the currency used with the online game platform Roblox) to juvenile females in exchange for nude photos and videos. Investigators found 36 pre-paid Robux cards in Carpenter’s bedroom.

Carpenter stated he used applications and sites such as Snapchat, Likee, Discord, and Omegle to solicit and exchange child pornography.

Investigators found 956 files of child sexual abuse material and 6,512 files of child exploitative or age-difficult material on Carpenter’s electronic devices.

Among those files were images and videos that Carpenter solicited from minor victims living in Dubai, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Wan. It was investigated by the Connecticut State Police, the Essex County, N.J., Prosecutor’s Office, Homeland Security Investigations, the Horry County, S. C., Sheriff’s Department, the Laclede County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, and the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.

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.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/lebanon-man-sentenced-25-years-child-sexual-exploitation