Joplin man's probation on child pornography charge revoked, sentenced to 10 months

A Joplin man's supervised release after serving a sentence on a child pornography charge was revoked during a recent hearing in U. S. District Court in Springfield.

During the 10-minute hearing, Richard Allen Miller, 35, was asked if he committed the 12 probation violation incidents for which he had been accused. He admitted to 11 of the 12 violations and acknowledged his probation officer would say he committed the 12th.

Judge Douglas Harpool sentenced Allen to 10 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release.

Court documents do not reveal the nature of Allen's violations.

A 2019 sentencing memorandum detailed the crimes that originally led to Allen's imprisonment:

The defendant sought out and deliberately downloaded depictions of children, some as young as infants, being raped, sodomized, and otherwise subjected to unthinkable acts of sexual and physical abuse," the memorandum reads.

The defendant’s illicit activities were uncovered after uploading a large number of files depicting child pornography. One such file depicted a prepubescent female, wearing a mask, bound by both wrists and ankles.

The child is forced to perform oral sex on an adult male and is later anally penetrated by a sexual device.

Investigators were able to identify the defendant as the source of the imagery, resulting in the issuance of a warrant to search the defendant’s Dropbox account.

The defendant was later questioned by investigators and readily confessed to ingesting methamphetamine and viewing depictions of child pornography. Disturbingly, the defendant also admitted to exchanging images with a minor female.

Miller was originally sentenced to six years in prison on February 21, 2020.