Cody Lee Davidson, Child Pornography Distribution, Missouri 2016

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Raytown man has been charged with distributing child pornography over the Internet, announced Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Cody Lee Davidson, 18, of Raytown, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016. Davidson was arrested yesterday and will have his initial court appearance today.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, Davidson took pornographic photos of a 7-year-old child victim, identified as Jane Doe, and posted those images on a Web site. Davidson also took a video of the child victim, the affidavit says, which federal agents located on his cell phone.

Davidson also took photos of an 8-year-old child victim, identified as Jane Doe 2, and sent those images to another individual via Kik Messenger.

Investigators have found more than 100 images and videos of child pornography on Davidson’s cell phone and camera, the affidavit says, and vast majority of the images and videos of child pornography depict victims from infants to 10 years old. Three videos, according to the affidavit, depict a female child engaged in sexually explicit conduct with an adult male.

The investigation began when federal agents in Boston, Mass., discovered six images of child pornography being distributed over the Internet on Aug. 7, 2015, during an undercover operation. Earlier this month, agents discovered new images from the same Web site, and learned that these images allegedly had been uploaded to another Web site by Davidson. On Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, federal agents and Raytown, Mo., police officers executed a search warrant at Davidson’s residence.

Dickinson cautioned that the charge contained in this complaint is simply an accusation, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charge must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Luna. It was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

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.”

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