Show-Me State Times

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge John A. Ross on Tuesday sentenced a man who stalked his St. Louis-area ex-girlfriends and sent them child sexual abuse material to 12 years in prison.

Cody Dean Brownlow, 41, sent threatening text and voice messages that included rape threats and files containing child sexual abuse material to an ex-girlfriend and her adult daughter in 2022, his plea agreement says. The victims reported the threats to the FBI. In April of 2023, a court-approved search of Brownlow’s home in Austin, Texas, resulted in the seizure of cell phones and other electronic devices that contained 1,601 images and 19 videos containing child pornography.

Brownlow pleaded guilty in May in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of distribution of child pornography and two counts of stalking.

During the investigation, two more ex-girlfriends reported that Brownlow had harassed and threatened them and sent them child sexual abuse material, a sentencing memo filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Chapman says. A boyfriend of one of the victims was also sent child pornography.

The FBI and the St. Louis County Police Department 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc.