Former Joplin Globe reporter pleads guilty to sex crime

Former Joplin Globe reporter Colby Williams pleaded guilty to a federal sex charge today and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. Williams admitted to engaging in illicit sexual contact with a person under the age of 18, according to court documents. The following description of Williams' crime was included in the court file:

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 the defendant was in Cyprus traveling with a missionary group, he engaged in sexual acts with a fourteen year-old female. The missionary group, Team Expansion, immediately arranged for the defendant to return to the United States. Team Expansion’s Global Security Director traveled to Cyprus and took possession of certain personal items that had belonged to the defendant, including a laptop computer and digital camera.

These items were turned over to ICE agents at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport on May 23, 2007.

Team Expansion supplied ICE with a written account of an internal interview conducted between Team Expansion members and the defendant, who admitted that he had sexual contact with the then-fourteen year old victim, referred to herein as "Victim 1". The defendant also stated that he was aware of Victim 1's age prior to any sexual contact that had taken place in Cyprus.

The defendant was interviewed by ICE and the Joplin Police Department at his residence on July 28, 2008. During the course of that interview, the defendant again admitted that while in Cyprus in 2007, he engaged in sexual acts with Victim 1. The defendant stated that he knew her age to be fourteen when they met in Cyprus. At that time, the defendant 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 Team Expansion. A subsequent forensic examination of that laptop computer revealed explicit sexual text conversation between the defendant 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 the defendant had unfolded.