Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Joplin man, West Virginia man sentenced for sexual act involving five-year-old at Neosho Inn, child pornography

A federal judge sentenced a Joplin man to 20 years in prison and a Virginia man to 30 years for their involvement in child pornography, including a sexual act with a five-year-old boy at the Neosho Inn.

Ronald Lee Fields, 56, Joplin, was arrested following a July 31, 2017 execution of a search warrant by the Southwest Missouri Cybercrimes Task Force during a child pornography investigation.

Fields' capture and admission to his crimes were included in the plea agreement filed in the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

The defendant was interviewed after being advised of his Miranda rights. The defendant admitted that he has seen child pornography on the internet and that the youngest child he saw on the computer having sex with an adult was about one to two years old. The defendant confessed that there was child pornography saved on his computer and phone. 

On Wednesday, August 2, 2017, Detective James Smith located some pictures on various devices seized from the defendant’s home that appeared to depict the defendant in a motel room with a child, around the age of five. 

Other pictures located on the devices depict the child posed in manner that displays the child’s genitalia in a prominent manner. 

In addition, several other images depict the same child being sexually abused in what appears to be a motel. One such image depicts the child performing oral sex upon an adult male. Metadata recovered from the images indicate that the photographs were taken at a variety of locations in Jasper and Newton Counties between April 20, 2014, and July 21, 2014. 

On August 3, 2017, Special Agent James Holdman interviewed the defendant a second time after he was advised of his Miranda rights. The defendant identified the child (hereafter described as John Doe 1) as the son of an acquaintance The defendant explained John Doe #1 and his father stayed with him about two to three years ago and then moved to West Virginia. 




The defendant explained that the images were taken approximately two or three years ago in the old Neosho Inn. The defendant expressly acknowledges that he aided and abetted in the production of the sexually explicit images depicting John Doe #1.

The man in the photos with his five-year-old son, Shannon Calhoun, 32, Phillipi, West Virginia, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

2 comments:

karen said...

I should not have read this post on a full stomach. Ugh, may they be visited by Karma, repeatedly and often.

Anonymous said...

"Joplin man, West Virginia man sentenced for rape involving five-year-old at Neosho Inn, child pornography"

Fixed it for you.