Spencer Man Admits to Receiving Child Pornography

A man who received child pornography pled guilty today in federal court in Sioux City.

Justin Funck, age 27, of Spencer, Iowa, was convicted of one count of receiving child pornography.

At the plea hearing, Funck admitted that, between April 2009 and May 2009, he downloaded child pornography using the Internet.

Sentencing before United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Funck was taken into custody by the United States Marshal after the guilty plea and will remain in custody pending sentencing. Funck faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, a $100 special assessment, and supervised release for five years to life following his imprisonment.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit Projectsafechildhood.gov.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 10-4102.