SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Springfield man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for using SnapChat to contact 12- and 13-year-old girls in Canada to induce them to engage in sexually explicit behavior.Michael David Miller, 40, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to 20 years in federal prison without parole.
On June 2, 2020, Miller pleaded guilty to the coercion and enticement of a minor.
On May 23, 2019, law enforcement in Ottawa, Canada, received multiple reports from 12-to-13-year-old girls that an older man – later identified as Miller – was communicating with them on SnapChat. Miller asked them to engage in sexually explicit activity, sent videos and images of child pornography, and masturbated while on video chat with some of the minors. SnapChat submitted to law enforcement 25 files of suspected child pornography that had been sent between Jan. 6 and May 29, 2019.
Local law enforcement began investigating after Miller was identified. Investigators also received information from an adult woman regarding Miller’s conduct via text messages and video chat through the Duo application. Officers executed a search warrant at Miller’s residence on July 18, 2019, and seized multiple devices. A forensic examination of those devices found videos and images of child pornography on his laptop computer.
Miller also admitted that he engaged in similar criminal conduct with children in Nebraska and Wisconsin.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crime Task Force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Springfield Police Department.
Project Safe Childhood
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.
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