Prairieburg Man Who Sexually Exploited At Least Six Children Sent to 40 Years in Prison

A man who used Snapchat, Instagram, and text messages to persuade children to engage in sexually explicit conduct, and send him photographs and videos of this conduct, was sentenced on October 1, 2025 to 40 years in federal prison.

Bryce Hans Plower, age 37, from Prairieburg, Iowa, received the prison term after an April 17, 2025 guilty plea to sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography.

Information in a plea agreement and at sentencing showed that between 2014 and 2024, Plower convinced multiple children to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves. Some minors were as young as 12 years old. He paid several children, often as little as $1. Minors then sent him sexually explicit images that they felt they owed him. Plower also possessed child pornography on his phone, including of a child engaged in sexual acts with an animal, prepubescent children, and sadistic or masochistic conduct.

Plower was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Plower was sentenced to 480 months' imprisonment and was ordered to make $6,000 in restitution to victims. He must also serve a 5-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

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 https://www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit https://www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."

Plower is being held in the United States Marshal's custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Devra T. Hake and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 24-CR-91.

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