Man sentenced to 20 years in conviction relating to Nevada case

Thursday, October 23, 2003

The ongoing saga of Vernon County's child pornography ring has finally neared its end this week as Gary Lee Smith of Jefferson, Ga., was sentenced, in federal court, to 19 years and seven months in prison without parole. In addition, he will have to pay $20,800 restitution to the victim. Smith was convicted in April of one count of enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions, one count of knowingly reproducing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and one count of interstate transporting of sexually explicit visual depictions. These charges stemmed from a series of incidents beginning on Feb.17, 2001 in a Nevada, Mo. motel, where Smith took photographs of a 12-year-old girl in sexually explicit poses. Motel employees suspected something underhanded was afoot and notified the authorities. Smith operated several Web sites from which he enticed young girls into posing for sexually explicit pictures by claiming to be able to launch their modeling career. When Vernon County Sheriff Ron Peckman was first notified about the possible wrongdoing he immediately went to the Web site operated by Smith and downloaded the questionable pictures. "Then we got ahold of the Feds on this, the FBI, postal, whoever we could think of and said 'Hey, this is what we got,' and they came down and gave us one hell of a hand getting everything put together," said Peckman. Smiths sentencing signifies the beginning of sentencing for a string of four convictions relating to this case. In April 2002 Vernon Countians Diane Houdeshell and Raymond Houdeshell pleaded guilty to using a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of the sex act while Fred Frakes, of Schell City, pled guilty to receiving child pornography through the mail and Internet. More than anything Peckman is just glad that the ordeal is over. He hopes that parents realize that this sort of thing is out there and start to watch what their kids are doing. Because of cases like this U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri Todd P. Graves formed the Computer Crimes and Child Exploitation Unit. This special unit is focused on fighting the use of advanced computer technologies to exploit children. "Some people still think of cyberspace as a vast untamed territory, like the Wild West. Just as the federal marshals and local sheriffs brought law and order to the old West, we will enforce the law against child pornographers and other Internet outlaws. It is our highest priority," said Graves, in a press release.

To Read More
Subscribe Sign In
Continue reading with a subscription
Subscription options