Puxico man gets 18 years for child porn charges

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. —A Stoddard County man was sentenced to 220 months in federal prison on child pornography charges.

James M. Davenport, 28, of Puxico was sentenced on Monday following his guilty plea to the offense of receipt of child pornography, according to the United States Attorney’s Office. Davenport appeared for his sentencing hearing before United States District Judge John A. Ross at the federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau.

At his guilty plea hearing in June, Davenport admitted that he used a social media application known as “Kik Messenger” to obtain numerous video files consisting of child pornography during online chat group sessions. Davenport further admitted that he then saved the material to his cloud storage account. According to court documents, some of the video files depicted the sexual abuse of children as young as infants and toddlers.

After serving his 220-month sentence, Davenport will be placed on lifetime supervised release. Among other conditions, Davenport will not be allowed to have contact with minors. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Stoddard County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Jack Koester handled the prosecution for the government.