Springfield Man Sentenced to 35 Years for Aggravated Sexual Abuse of a Minor Less Than 12

Springfield, Mo. - A Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor less than 12 years and a single count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place.

John Michel Bradley, 66, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough to 35 years in federal prison without parole. The Court also ordered Bradley to serve supervised release for 10 years following his incarceration.

In May 2025, Bradley pleaded guilty to all four counts of a federal indictment on the first day of a jury trial after the conclusion of the first witness's testimony. The indictment involved Bradley's criminal conduct occurring between 2005 and 2006 while he was an active-duty member of the U.S. Army in Honduras, and between 2007 and 2008 when he returned to Honduras multiple times as a civilian.

In his plea of guilty, the defendant admitted that while he was stationed in Honduras in 2005, he met the minor victim. Over the course of the next three years, beginning when the minor victim was four years old, the defendant sexually abused the child on numerous occasions. The defendant admitted that after his active-duty tour in Honduras ended in 2006 he returned to Honduras from the United States with the intent to engage in sexual acts with the child and did engage in sexual acts with the minor victim. The minor victim, now an adult, reported the crimes to U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division in 2021. The defendant has a previous federal conviction in 2019 for possession of child pornography also in the Western District of Missouri.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Luna. It was investigated by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, and U.S Army Criminal Investigations Division.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."