Sioux City Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Child Pornography

 Defendant possessed images of children under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

A man who possessed child pornography was sentenced on December 23, 2020, to over 7 years in federal prison.

Justin Allen Pageler, age 35, from Sioux City, Iowa, received the prison term after a July 20, 2020, guilty plea to one count of possession of child pornography.

In a plea agreement, Pageler admitted that between September 25, 2018 and June 26, 2019, in the Northern District of Iowa, he knowingly possessed visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Pageler stated in an interview with law enforcement that he utilized peer-to-peer file sharing services BitTorrent and Ares on computers in his home to download and view the pornography.

Pageler was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand.  Pageler was sentenced to 90 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $21,000 in restitution.  He must also serve a 5-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Pageler is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

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.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy Duax and investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force, and the U.S. Marshal’s Service.