Three Boone County men have been sentenced for child pornography charges.
Meyer
The Boone Co. Circuit Court reports that 25-year-old Ryan Michael Meyer pleaded guilty to the possession of child pornography and was sentenced to six years in prison.
The investigation leading to this conviction began in mid-September when a Boone County Sheriff’s Dept. A Cyber Crimes Task Force detective identified a computer believed to be in the Columbia area offering child pornography though a file sharing program.
The detective was later able to identify a specific residence from where the illegal files were being offered. A search warrant was served and hundreds of child pornography videos were found on Meyer’s computer. Children in the videos were from 8 years old to early teens.
Lenser
Ansel Lenser, 26, has been sentenced to five years as a result of an investigation that began in Mid-November also involving a file sharing program. In early December, a Task Force investigator was able to determine additional child pornography files, some believed to involve prepubescent children, were being offered from the same location.
Two computers were seized at Lenser’s residence, which turned up photos of children as young as three to five years of age being sexually molested.
Joel Wesley Florence, 27, who is believed to now live in the Franklin County area but did live in Columbia received a seven year prison sentence and placed on five years probation resulting from an investigation that began in late January.
Florence
He too was found to be in possession of a computer that offered to disseminate child pornogrpahy through file-sharing programs. The Cyber Crimes Task Force downloaded four video files that showed the sexual molestation of prepubescent children.
The Central Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force serves Boone, Audrain, Cooper, Callaway, Cole, Howard and Randolph counties and comprises the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, the University of Missouri Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
