Thursday, April 30, 2015

Former Springfield police officer sentenced on child pornography charge

(From the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri)

 A retired Springfield, Mo., police officer was sentenced in federal court today for possessing child pornography.

Steven Robert Magruder, 60, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to four years in federal prison without parole. The court will issue a separate order for Magruder to pay restitution to one of his victims.

Magruder retired as a corporal from the Springfield Police Department in 2005. He worked part-time from 2006 to 2014 as a security officer for Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield and as a bailiff for the Greene County Circuit Court in 2013.

On Oct. 7, 2014, Magruder pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography.

A detective with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department identified Magruder’s computer on Jan. 7, 2013, as sharing child pornography over the Internet. The detective downloaded 12 videos of child pornography that Magruder was sharing via a peer-to-peer file-sharing program during a 42-day period in January and February 2013. Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Magruder’s residence and seized his computer, which contained child pornography. A detailed forensic analysis was conducted on Magruder’s computer and indicated that Magruder had been collecting child porn for the past year.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Abram McGull, II. It was investigated by the FBI, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crime Task Force, the Jasper County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department and the Springfield, Mo., Police Department.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm thrilled he was convicted. Betraying the trust of the people he was supposed to serve by participating in a heinous crime. He was raising an adopted child and had foster children in the home. I hope they were not in danger.