Joplin man pleads guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor

 

During a hearing this morning in U. S. District Court in Springfield, a Neosho man pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor.

A pre-sentencing hearing was ordered for Clinton Anthony Yeats, 28. No date has been scheduled for sentencing. Yeats will remain in the Greene County Jail.

As part of a plea agreement, a second charge against Yeats, possession of child pornography, will not be prosecuted.

Yeats will spend at least 10 years in prison, according to the plea agreement, which detailed his crimes.

The investigation began following a tip from Snapchat to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that led to Yeats.

Through the course of the investigation, John Doe, a 15-year-old minor male, was identified as having had an online relationship with Yeats.

On May 13, 2020, John Doe was interviewed by HSI Child and Adolescent Forensic Interviewer Kim Stewart.

John Doe disclosed that over the course of he past several months prior to the interview, Yeats and John Doe communicated online. (They) met through the social media application known as Grindr, a dating application.

The two stopped communicating after a short time; however, at the end of 2019, they reconnected on Grindr. Eventually, they also used Snapchat and text messaging to communicate. Yeats had solicited and received sexually explicit images of John Doe, that is, child pornography depicting John Doe, through the various social media applications.

Yeats also sent sexually explicit images of himself to John Doe. Yeats and John Doe also discussed meeting and engaging in sexual activity.