Dee Wampler to represent former Globe intern charged with sex crime

Springfield defense attorney Dee Wampler has signed on as former Joplin Globe intern Colby Williams' lawyer, according to an entry of appearance filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

Williams, 24, a senior at Missouri Southern State University, is charged with coercion or enticement of minor female. According to an FBI affidavit:

An investigation was initiated by the ICE Office of Investigations in St Louis, Missouri, in July, 2007, based upon a complaint filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The complaint alleged that while he was in Cyprus traveling with a missionary group, Colby L. Williams engaged in sexual acts with a fourteen year-old female. The missionary group, Team Expansion of Louisville, Kentucky, immediately arranged for Williams to return to the United States. The Security
Director of the organization, Jim Richter, traveled to Cyprus and took possession of certain personal items that had belonged to Williams, including a laptop computer and digital camera. Richter turned these items over to ICE agents at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport on May 23, 2007.

An investigation was initiated by the ICE Office of Investigations in St Louis, Missouri, in July, 2007, based upon a complaint filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The complaint alleged that while he was in Cyprus traveling with a missionary group, Colby L. Williams engaged in sexual acts with a fourteen year-old female. The missionary group, Team Expansion of Louisville, Kentucky, immediately arranged for Williams to return to the United States. The Security
Director of the organization, Jim Richter, traveled to Cyprus and took possession of certain personal items that had belonged to Williams, including a laptop computer and digital camera. Richter turned these items over to ICE agents at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport on May 23, 2007.

Richter supplied your Affiant with a written account of an internal interview conducted between himself, Colby Williams, and Glen Gibson, Vice President and Training Director for Team Expansion International Services. Williams admitted to Richter and Gibson that he had sexual contact with the then-fourteen year old victim, referred to herein as “Victim 1”. Williams also stated that he was aware of Victim 1’s age prior to any sexual contact that had taken place in Cyprus.

Colby Williams was interviewed by your Affiant and a Joplin, Missouri, Police Dept. Detective at his residence on July 28, 2008. During the course of that interview, Williams again admitted that while in Cyprus in 2007, he engaged in sexual acts with
Victim 1, (description was provided at this point of the sex acts). Williams stated that he knew her age to be fourteen when they met in Cyprus. Also at that time Williams signed a Consent to Search Computer/Electronic Equipment form for his Apple laptop computer, and other electronic items which had been turned over to ICE agents by Jim Richter. A subsequent forensic examination of that laptop computer revealed explicit sexual text conversation between Williams and Victim 1.

On October 1, 2008, Victim 1 was interviewed at a Child Advocacy Center in Tyler, Texas, about the events that had transpired in Cyprus in 2007. Victim 1 detailed in the videotaped interview how various sexual encounters with Colby Williams had
unfolded.

In August, 2009, your affiant spoke via telephone with Williams, and was told by Williams that he has been in the process of moving from his parents’ home in Sikeston, MO, back to Joplin to begin an internship with the Joplin Globe newspaper. The usual investigative means to locate an individual revealed only previous addresses for Williams. Internet research conducted on Williams in September, 2009, showed him to be listed on several web sites related to journalism and the Joplin Globe, and he was also listed on websites related to a group known as Mwangaza International, which is dedicated to helping refugees in war-torn areas of Africa.

Williams' arraignment is scheduled for Nov. 24 in Springfield.