(From the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri)A Carthage man pleaded guilty in federal court today to sexually exploiting a child from Michigan whom he met online.
Charles Ward Kuentzel, 26, pleaded guilty before U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to one count of the sexual exploitation of a child.
By pleading guilty today, Kuentzel admitted that he used a child victim to produce child pornography from Sept. 1, 2020, to April 21, 2021.
According to today’s plea agreement, the mother of the child victim, identified in court documents as Jane Doe 1, contacted law enforcement in Michigan because her daughter was in an inappropriate online relationship with an adult man. The child victim told investigators she met Kuentzel in a public Discord game server, through which they communicated. FBI agents in in the Detroit division were able to identify Kuentzel in the online chats, in which Kuentzel and the child victim sent one another sexually explicit images of themselves. Kuentzel engaged in video chats and sexual conversations with the victim.
Officers executed a search warrant at Kuentzel’s residence on Aug. 26, 2021, and seized his cell phone and microSD card. Numerous images of the child victim, including child pornography, were found on the cell phone and the microSD card.
During the forensic examination, investigators also found several sexually explicit images of another child victim, identified in court documents as Jane Doe 2. She told investigators she was 14 years old when she met Kuentzel on Omegle, and they communicated through the Snapchat and Kik applications. Kuentzel requested nude images from Jane Doe 2, which she provided.
Under federal statutes, Kuentzel is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison without parole, up to a sentence of 30 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Wan. It was investigated by the FBI, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, and the Canton, Mich., Police Department.
1 comment:
This guy has some sort of history with this type of stuff.
Guess dropping charges and that Texass plea deal didn't deter him enough.
Additional details here: https://rturner229.blogspot.com/2021/08/carthage-man-arrested-for-sexual.html
In an interview with the FBI, the child said they had begun their chats at around the start of the 2020-2021 school year and the chats later took a sexual turn and the two began showing each other "different parts of our bodies."
Jane Doe identified the photos of the redheaded Kuentzel as the man she knew as "Charlie." The photos included photos of his genital area which also featured red hair. She also identified her own photos.
Federal agents conducted a search warrant of Kuentzel's home on Pine Street in Carthage August 18 and confiscated his cell phone, which contained the same photos the FBI had been investigating.
A search of Kuentzel's criminal history revealed an earlier incident in which he had been involved with an underage child.
His criminal history included a 2018 arrest for kidnapping out of Jasper County, Missouri, a 2018 arrest for unlawful restraint out of the Wheeler County, Texas Sheriff's Office and a 2018 guilty plea to harboring a runaway child in the 31st District in Texas.
That case was described in an August 31, 2017 Carthage Police Department news release:
On 08/31/2017 21-year-old Charles Ward Kuentzel Jr. was arrested at his residence, 520 Pine St. in Carthage, on a felony warrant out of Wheeler County, Texas for unlawful restraint for taking a 15-year-old female, missing from her home in Texas since 07/24/2017, and bringing her to Missouri. The juvenile was found and is being reunited with her family.
Charles was also charged here with kidnapping 1st degree, endangering the welfare of a child 1st Degree and fugitive from justice.
The Jasper County charges were dismissed when Kuentzel was extradited to Texas, where a plea agreement was reached and he pleaded guilty to harboring a runaway child.
In an interview with the FBI, the child said they had begun their chats at around the start of the 2020-2021 school year and the chats later took a sexual turn and the two began showing each other "different parts of our bodies."
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