WARRENSBURG — A Warrensburg resident was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to 20 charges of possession of child pornography.
In August 2020, Michael Keller was charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography — second/subsequent offense or possession of more than 20 pictures/one film/videotape, a class B felony, in Johnson County Circuit Court.
Keller withdrew his plea of not guilty and pleaded guilty to all 20 counts of the felony charges on Monday, May 10.
Keller was sentenced to 10 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections and required to register as a sex offender.
The court also recognized that Keller is a prior offender. According to the court’s probable cause statement, he was previously charged with a class C felony of possession of child pornography in 2017 in Clay County Circuit Court.
According to the Johnson County Circuit Court’s probable cause statement, Keller was accused of possessing still images and videos of child pornography depicting persons less than 18 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
In the court documents, a Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force detective stated that in May 2020, the agency received information from the Johnson County, Kansas, Sheriff’s Office regarding Keller downloading and exchanging child pornography through social media.
The detective stated the images were examined to determine what images from the search warrant return were known child pornography. They stated the report found 14 known child pornographic images and one video.
The detective stated that because Keller was on probation for child pornography and has a young daughter, a meeting between Keller and the detective and a meeting between Keller and his probation officer took place.
In the detective’s interview with Keller, they stated Keller admitted to communicating with a 12-year-old female and exchanging pornographic images with her. Keller also provided email addresses and the phone number associated with the reported social media account as well as a number of other social media accounts.
The detective stated the information corresponded with the information provided by Johnson County, Kansas, investigators.
The detective stated Keller violated his probation conditions and his probation officer filed a probation violation report requesting his probation be revoked and an arrest warrant was issued.
The detective stated Keller provided written consent to examine his phone. A digital forensic examination performed on Keller’s phone resulted in a total of 931 images and videos containing child pornography being located. The detective added that 2,413 images and 14 videos were located that depicted child exploitation material or age difficult images.
