SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A North Carolina man was sentenced in
federal court today for the sexual exploitation of a child in Joplin, Mo.
David Lee Perkins, 34, of Winston-Salem, N.C., was sentenced
by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to life in federal prison without
parole. The court also ordered Perkins to pay $6,325 in restitution to his
victim.
On Jan. 18, 2018, Perkins was found guilty following a bench
trial of crossing state lines into Missouri with the intent to engage in a
sexual act with a child victim under the age of 12 from April 16, 2014, to Dec.
11, 2016.
Additionally, Perkins had already pleaded guilty on Jan. 3,
2018, to two additional counts contained in the Jan. 18, 2017, federal
indictment. Perkins admitted that he used the child victim to produce child
pornography and that he distributed child pornography.
Joplin police officers were dispatched to a local hotel
where Perkins was staying on Dec. 11, 2016. A female acquaintance of Perkins
told officers that she found several videos on an iPad of Perkins engaged in
sexually explicit conduct with the child victim. Officers contacted Perkins in
his hotel room and placed him under arrest.
Perkins told investigators he used his iPad and iPhone to
photograph and create videos of the sexually explicit conduct he engaged in
with the child victim in various hotels and motels in Joplin. Investigators
found three video files on Perkins’s iPad. Perkins shared those images and
videos of child pornography with at least one other person by attaching them to
text messages.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ami
Harshad Miller and Nhan D. Nguyen. It was investigated by the Joplin, Mo.,
Police Department, the FBI, and the Newton, N.C., Police Department.
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