ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A Webster Groves man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
Jonathan Wells, 39, pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Clark to 10 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Wells was also ordered to pay $5,000 to the Justice for Victims of Trafficking fund.
A press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Sayler Flemming, said police were first tipped off about suspected child pornography when Wells loaded 94 images to his Adobe account.
Adobe Systems Inc. reported the activity to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in December of 2019.
About a month later, investigators executed a search warrant at Wells' home in Webster Groves. During the search, they found more than 23,000 images of child pornography on his desktop computer. They said the images were downloaded from the internet.
The case was investigated by the St. Louis County Police Department and the FBI.
Members of the public can provide tips to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's tipline.
"NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for the online exploitation of children," The center's website says. "The public and electronic service providers can make reports of suspected online enticement of children for sexual acts, child sexual molestation, child sexual abuse material, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking, unsolicited obscene materials sent to a child, misleading domain names, and misleading words or digital images on the internet."
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