Show-Me State Times

A former teacher from St. Louis County, Missouri, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for producing child pornography using hidden cameras. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey delivered the sentence on Wednesday and ordered Joseph R. Gutowski to pay $86,500 in restitution to his victims.

Gutowski was found guilty of hiding cameras in his office at Lafayette High School in Wildwood and at his home, where he secretly filmed a minor. He shared some of these images online and was involved with an underground child pornography group on the cloud storage service Mega. Additionally, he traded videos of an adult recorded without consent within the "Club Creep" group on Mega.

In July, Gutowski pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of producing child pornography and one count of receiving child pornography.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the St. Louis County Police Department Special Investigations Unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuting the case.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched by the Department of Justice in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The project aims to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals exploiting children via the Internet while also identifying and rescuing victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.