St. Louis Man Sentenced to 510 Months in Prison for Recording Sexual Abuse of Multiple Victims

ST. LOUIS - U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Wednesday sentenced a man who produced child sexual abuse material involving at least eight victims to 42 and one-half years in prison.

Tracy Jenkins, 59, recorded his sexual abuse of five children who have been identified by investigators. Three other victims have not yet been identified but appear in the recordings. One of the victims was 6 years old when the abuse began. Another was 11. Jenkins began making videos at least as early as 2013, and the videos are now circulating online.

Judge Clark called Jenkins "a ravenous and insatiable sexual predator of the highest order" after detailing the lengthy history of Jenkins' sexual abuse of the victims and his production of nearly 1,200 hours of videos recording that abuse.

Jenkins' crimes were stopped after the FBI's Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Unit determined the identity of one of the victims whose image was online and contacted the St. Louis office of the FBI. Agents quickly located Jenkins and conducted a court-approved search of his home, finding multiple electronic devices with thousands of files containing child pornography. They also located about 200 videos that Jenkins produced of his sexual abuse of the victims in this case, ranging in length from seconds to over one hour and 45 minutes, Jenkins'plea agreement says.

Jenkins pleaded guilty in June in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of production of child pornography and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Investigators found a stolen pistol when they searched his home.

The FBI 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 www.justice.gov/psc.