Sex Offender Admits Child Exploitation Offenses, Threatening Minors

Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that GREGORY BUTTS, 54, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport to a child exploitation offense.

According to court documents and statements made in court, in April 2016, Butts was convicted in Connecticut state court of illegal sexual contact with a child.

In November 2020, family and friends of two missing juveniles in Colorado posted information about the missing juveniles on social media pages and included a phone number asking the public to call with information. Butts, with his own phone number blocked, called the number and spoke to a female friend of the missing juveniles, who recorded the conversation. Butts stated that he was with the missing juveniles and had had sexual contact with them. He threatened to harm the missing juveniles if the conversation were recorded or if law enforcement were contacted, and threatened the female friend who answered the phone. He then said that he would return the missing juveniles if the female friend would have sexual intercourse with him. Shortly after the juveniles had been reported missing, they returned home. They were not harmed and had not been kidnapped.

Investigators determined that the call emanated from a lightly-populated area in Sprague, Connecticut, and that Butts was a registered sex offender living in the area who was on probation following a state conviction for illegal sexual contact with a minor. After a Connecticut probation officer identified Butts' voice on the recording, probation officers searched Butts' residence and another residence where he also had been staying and seized a computer, storage devices, multiple cell phones and other items.

Forensic analysis of the seized items revealed more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography, and downloaded conversations Butts had with minors on Snapchat and other social media applications. In the chats, Butts engaged in sexually explicit conversations, made numerous threats and demanded, and sometimes received, sexually explicit photos.

Butts pleaded guilty to possession of a child pornography, which, based on his criminal history, carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 10 years and maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.

Butts has been detained since March 4, 2022.

This investigation has been conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New Haven, Connecticut and Loveland, Colorado, with the assistance of the Connecticut Office of Adult Probation, Connecticut State Police, and the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nancy V. Gifford and Daniel E. Cummings.

U.S. Attorney Avery thanked the State's Attorney's Office for the Judicial District of New London for its close cooperation in investigating and prosecuting this matter.

This prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

To report cases of child exploitation, please visit www.cybertipline.com.