McLaughin Man Sentenced to More Than 8 Years in Federal Prison for Receipt of Child Pornography

RAPID CITY - United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced today that U.S. District Judge Camela C. Theeler has sentenced a McLaughin, South Dakota, man convicted of Receipt of Child Pornography. The sentencing took place on August 3, 2026.

Dakota Horned Eagle, 22, was sentenced to eight years and one month in federal prison, followed by seven years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $570 in restitution and a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Forfeiture of a desktop computer and a cell phone was also ordered.

Horned Eagle was indicted for the charge by a federal grand jury in May 2025. He pleaded guilty on April 21, 2026.

Between November 2003 and November 2024, Horned Eagle used his cellular phone to receive sexually explicit visual depictions of minors into a Kik account. Many thousands of the files contained on a flash drive depicted minors who were unmistakably under the age of 18. Law enforcement investigators discovered 88 media files that contained child pornography. Horned Eagle's Kik account also contained discussions with other Kik users about his sexual abuse of female relatives when they were minors and discussions about trading child pornography with other users.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the DOJ's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, the Rapid City Police Department, and the Pennington County Sheriff's Office. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Knox and Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Patterson prosecuted the case.

Horned Eagle was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.