Joplin man who lived at unlicensed day care center sentenced to six years on child pornography charge

During a hearing held this morning in U. S. District Court in Springfield, a federal judge sentenced Kent Hagan, 52, to serve six years in prison on a child pornography charge.

Hagan will be on supervised release for 10 years after his sentence ends.

Hagan initially came to the Joplin Police Department's attention following a hotline tip about a man living at an unlicensed day care center on W. 9th Street in Joplin.
Joplin Police received the hotline tip from an informant who said she had been todl by the day care center operator, Betsy Coleman, that she had seen "creepy"photos of two or her charges on Hagan's phone and that she had also seen numerous child porn images. After that, she kicked Hagan out.

The informant did not contact the police until she saw Hagan was living at the day care center again.

When Joplin Police Detective Dustin Moyer and Sgt. Andrew Blair contacted the day care owner,C Coleman confirmed the "creepy images" of two of her charges and said she had deleted the photos, which focused on the bottoms of two young girls, both of whom were clothed.

The woman told the policemen she allowed Hagan to return and be around the children because "she was afraid the perception would ruin her business."

Moyer and Blair contacted Hagan at his place of employment and he became nervous, according to the search warrant. They asked if had other computers and he said he did. As they were questioning him about the "creepy" photos, he showed signs of possibly throwing up. He told the officers he would come to the police station after he got off work at 6 p.m. He turned over his cell phone at the officers' request.

At 3:27 p.m., Moyer and Blair went to Hagan's mother's home and found him with one of the devices. He said he had come home early because he was not feeling well.To the officer, it appeared that Hagan may have been trying to destroy evidence. Moyer asked if he could look at the computer and Hagan refused. At that point, all devices were confiscated.

While they were dealing with Hagan, a forensic search was taking place on Hagan's Samsung Galaxy. The search uncovered 809 child pornography images, 69 anime pornography images, with some of the photos featuring children being violated by adults, a female child being violated by a candy cane and a naked child eating corn on the cob, according to the search warrant affidavit.