A former Noel police officer and ex-reserve deputy for the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of sexually exploiting a child and possession of child pornography.
Casey Nanez, 28, Noel, entered the plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. England in regards to the Nov. 17, 2009, federal indictment, according to a press release from Beth Phillips, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
According to Thursday’s plea agreement, the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department seized Nanez’s computer during an investigation into allegations that he had unlawful sexual contact with one or more minors. An officer with the Joplin Police Department conducted a forensic examination of the computer and located several photographs of minors, including a set of photographs that depicted a minor engaged in sex with an adult. Nanez admitted he took those photographs and downloaded them onto his computer.
Under federal laws, Nanez is subject to 15 to 40 years in a federal prison without parole, a fine of $500,000 and an order of restitution. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation by the United Sates Probation Office.
Nanez was originally charged with two felony counts of second-degree statutory rape, a misdemeanor charge of second-degree child molestation and a misdemeanor charge of tampering with a witness. He was accused of having sexual intercourse and deviate sexual intercourse or sodomy with a 15-year-old girl between July and November of 2008, and having sexual contact with a 16-year-old girl on several occasions between December and June, 2008. He was also accused of rubbing the buttocks of an underage girl through her clothing on June 3, 2009, and that he asked a witness in the case, the mother of the 16-year-old, if she had filed a complaint against him charging him with having sex with her daughter. According to a probable cause affidavit, he was accused of telling the woman she should tell law enforcement officers “a different story that he and the victims had already agreed on.”
The case was initiated as a part of Project Safe Childhood, a program launched in 2006 by the federal Justice Department to protect children from online exploitation and abuse.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Kelleher. Agencies investigating the allegations included the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department, the Joplin Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
