Northland Man Sentenced to 30 Years for Producing Child Pornography

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KANSAS CITY—David M. Ketchmark, ActingUnited States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that aKansas City, Missouri man was sentenced in federal court today for producingchild pornography.
Cory E. Stahl, 33, of Kansas City-North,was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple to 30 years in federal prisonwithout parole.
On February 4, 2011, Stahl pleadedguilty to using a minor (identified as John Doe), with whom he had arelationship through a volunteer mentoring organization, to create hundreds ofimages of child pornography.
Stahl began sponsoring the minor victimthrough a local mentoring service in 2006, when the victim was 9 years old. Asa mentor, Stahl was placed in a position of trust and interacted with the minorvictim on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. The victim spent a great deal oftime at Stahl’s home and was taken by Stahl on trips outside the Kansas City-areaand out of state.
A cooperating witness in Baltimore,Maryland told FBI agents that Stahl sent pornographic photographs of the victimto him over the Internet. The cooperating witness was arrested by FBI agents inSeptember 2010 for distributing child pornography and provided the agents withinformation about Stahl.
When federal agents visited Stahl’s homein January 2011, they located a pornographic photograph of the victim onStahl’s computer and seized his computer equipment, storage devices and cameramedia. Investigators conducted a forensic examination and found 740pornographic images of the victim, some of which were taken in Stahl’sapartment. Among those images were 30 photographs of Stahl and the victimengaged in sexually explicit conduct with each other, which were created in2008 when the victim was 10 years old.
Two days after Stahl was firstinterviewed by federal agents about some of the pornographic images, he wastraveling northbound on U.S. Highway 59 approximately five miles south of St.Joseph, Mo., when he crossed the center line and struck a southbound commercialtruck. He sustained serious injuries and was life-flighted to a St. Josephhospital. During an inventory search of his damaged vehicle prior to tow,officers located a notebook that contained a possible suicide note, lettersapologizing for his behavior that contained suicidal references and admissionsof guilt, and Stahl’s passport.
After Stahl was released from thehospital, while on bond in this criminal case, the FBI learned that he wasattempting to contact the victim. A warrant was issued for his arrest forviolating the conditions of his bond. At the time of his arrest, Stahl was inpossession of a thumb drive that contained multiple images of child pornographyin addition to numerous nonpornographic images of the victim. Stahl admitted tousing a computer in violation of his pretrial release conditions.
This case was prosecuted by AssistantU.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. It was investigated by the FBI and the MissouriState Highway Patrol.
ProjectSafe ChildhoodThis case was brought as part of ProjectSafe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Departmentof Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation andabuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’sChild Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshalsfederal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecuteindividuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visitwww.usdoj.gov/psc For more information about Internet safety education, pleasevisit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”