Joplin man sentenced to six years in prison on child pornography charges

A Joplin man will spend six years in prison for receiving and distributing child pornography.

U. S. District Court Judge Beth Phillips sentenced Richard Ray Thuerauf, 49, during a 16-minute hearing today in Springfield.

Thuerauf will be on supervised probation for five years following his release. According to court records, he will serve his sentenced in a prison near San Diego, California to allow him to be near family.

Thuerauf pleaded guilty in July. His crime was detailed in the plea agreement:
On August 28, 2017, Joplin, Missouri, Police Department (JPD) Officer Laken Rawlins was dispatched to a residence in Joplin, Missouri. Upon arrival, Officer Rawlins contacted Katherine Thuerauf. Katherine stated that on August 27, 2017, she got on to her husband, Richard Ray Thuerauf’s, HP laptop computer and observed child pornography images in the trash bin application. 



On August 28, 2017, SMCCTF TFO Matthew Smith made contact with Thuerauf. Post-Miranda Thuerauf stated he had images of child pornography saved on the laptop computer and his iCloud account. Thuerauf admitted that he used his Apple iPhone 7+ to search for child pornography. On August 29, 2017, SMCCTF TFO Larry Roller conducted a forensic examination on Thuerauf’s Apple iPhone 7+. TFO Roller located numerous images of child pornography, that is children less than 18 years of age engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

On December 21, 2017, TFO Smith applied for and received a search warrant from the Jasper County Circuit Court for the search of Thuerauf’s Apple iCloud account and mr.rayt@yahoo.com. On January 23, 2018, Apple Inc., responded to the search warrant. TFO Roller created a mirror image of the disk provided by Apple. Thuerauf had e-mailed multiple images of child pornography from his iCloud account, mr.rayt@icloud.com to mr.rayt@yahoo.com. August 18, 2017, was the first instance on which images were e-mailed between the two accounts. There were multiple images of child pornography saved inside Thuerauf’s iCloud Photo Library. TFO Roller confirmed that the Apple iPhone 7+ was manufactured outside the state of Missouri and would have had to cross state lines to enter.

A detention motion filed by the U. S. Attorney in February said Thuerauf had more than 1,000 child pornography images on his cell phone and 282 more on his iCloud.