Government recommends 18-year sentence for Neosho sex offender on child pornography charges

In a sentencing memorandum filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, the government recommended an 18-year sentence for a Neosho sex offender who pleaded guilty in January to child pornography charges.

Assistant U. S. Attorney James J. Kelleher points out that Benjamin H. Cole, 38, was convicted in 2005 of statutory sodomy involving a six-year-old girl and has though he admits his guilt in the current case does not acknowledge that what he did was wrong.

The defendant, a convicted sex offender, knowingly accessed and downloaded depictions of children being subjected to sexual abuse of the most unimaginable sort. Given his prior conviction for sexually abusing a child, the defendant’s activities are far more disturbing than similarly situated offenders.

 Kelleher says a lengthy sentence is necessary to keep from Cole from doing any more harm.

The defendant has been convicted of an exceptionally serious offense. The defendant’s motivation for committing this crime is his sexual attraction to children. The defendant presents a profound danger to society. The defendant falls into the most troubling category of receipt and distribution cases in that he has demonstrated a willingness to physically harm children. Consequently, a lengthy sentence is warranted to protect the public from the defendant.

Authorities obtained a search warrant on Cole's home after tracing images of naked children bound and being sexually assaulted and traced them to an IP address at that location.

On August 6, 2019, members of the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force and officers from the Neosho, Missouri, Police Department executed the residential search warrant at the defendant’s residence. 

During the execution of the warrant, investigators seized a cellular telephone belonging to the defendant. A forensic examination of the cellular telephone yielded the discovery of 1473 images and 221 videos containing depictions of child pornography, along with 2085 images depicting child erotica. 

The defendant declined to be interviewed by the investigators. 

The defendant’s wife, however, advised that she had found sexually explicit images of children on the defendant’s cell phone and that the defendant claimed to be addicted to pornography.

Cole's sentencing hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, September 22, in Springfield.