ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White on Tuesday sentenced a man who was caught with child sexual abuse material to 97 months in prison.
Philip Daniel Shurtliff, 34, will also have to register as a sex offender. Shurtliff pleaded guilty in February to two counts of receipt of child pornography. He admitted that after a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children led the St. Charles County Cyber Crimes Task Force to his home, he told detectives that he had been trading child pornography for approximately 19 years. Shurtliff acknowledged that 42 files containing child sexual abuse material were in his Kik Messenger account and that investigators found 97 images and 27 videos containing child pornography on his phone.
The FBI and the St. Charles County Cyber Crimes Task Force investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Chapman 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.
