Missouri Man Sentenced to 6 ½ Years for Child Pornography Offense

ST. LOUIS - U.S. District Judge John A. Ross on Thursday sentenced a man to 78 months in prison for possessing child sexual abuse material on multiple electronic devices and in a cloud account.

Judge Ross also ordered Davie John Metzger, 55, of O'Fallon, Missouri, to pay $24,000 in restitution to the victims that have been identified in the material he possessed, as well as $40,000 that will go to other child pornography victims and victim services.

Metzger possessed 369 images of child sexual abuse material on a flash drive, 24 images on a hard drive, 211 in an online cloud storage account and 343 on a cell phone. Metzger's conduct triggered three CyberTipline reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A court-approved search of his online account revealed photos that he'd surreptitiously taken of women and girls in public places.

Metzger pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in April to one count of receipt of child pornography.

The FBI and the St. Charles County Cybercrime Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuted the case.

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 U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.