Springfield Man Sentenced to 17 Years for Child Pornography

 SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Springfield, Missouri, man was sentenced in federal court today for receiving and distributing child pornography.

Marco Barraza, 28, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark to 17 years and six months in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Barraza to 20 years of supervised release following incarceration and ordered him to pay $39,000 in restitution to his victims. Barraza will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison and will be subject to federal and state sex offender registration requirements, which may apply throughout his life.

On Oct. 29, 2019, Barraza was found guilty at trial of one count of receiving and distributing child pornography.

Law enforcement investigators received two reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Barraza had transmitted images of child pornography through chat sessions on his Tumblr account in September 2016. Officers executed a search warrant at Barraza’s residence on March 16, 2017, and seized numerous computer-related property, including three cell phones and two hard drives that had been removed from laptop computers. Those devices contained approximately 600 images of child pornography.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Kelleher and Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall D. Eggert. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cybercrimes Task Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Springfield, Mo., Police Department, and the Barry County, Mo., Sheriff’s 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. 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."