Cooper County Sex Offender Sentenced to 45 Years for Child Pornography

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A Prairie Home, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for producing child pornography.

Bradley Leigh Knecht, 30, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 45 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Knecht to spend the rest of his life on supervised release following incarceration.

Knecht, who pleaded guilty to producing child pornography on April 4, 2024, is required to register as a sex offender due to prior Arkansas convictions for possessing child pornography.

A detective with the Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force received a report on Aug. 17, 2022, that a user (later identified as Knecht) had uploaded multiple nude images of girls, approximately three to five years of age, to Snapchat. Knecht was arrested by a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper during a traffic stop on Sept. 9, 2022, for failing to register as a sex offender in Cooper County, Mo. (to which he later pleaded guilty). His electronic devices were seized at the time of his arrest. Investigators found multiple social media accounts, including a Snapchat account, and identified the original child sexual abuse material that had been reported by Snapchat.

Knecht was using the Snapchat account to portray himself as a minor and engage in inappropriate conversations with other minors on Snapchat.

Investigators also found multiple nude images of a child victim under the age of 14. Knecht, portraying himself as the child victim, used the victim's identity to solicit other children to produce and send pornographic images to him. For example, Knecht - posing as the child victim - exchanged approximately 284 messages with a user who identified herself as a 13-year-old girl over three days in May 2022. Knecht discussed matters of a sexual nature and requested and received nude images. In another conversation, Knecht, again posing as the child victim, messaged an individual who identified herself as a 14-year-old girl. Knecht sent her videos of the child victim as well as the 13-year-old from the previous conversation; the 14-year-old girl sent nude images of herself to Knecht. A total of 210 images were exchanged from May 12 to June 13, 2022.

Knecht also impersonated the child victim to sell her nude images to others using the CashApp application. Investigators identified more than 100 transactions in the three months prior to Knecht's arrest on Sept. 9, 2022.

Knecht also had pleaded guilty in 2020 to failure to register as a sex offender in Moniteau County, Mo., as well as residing within one thousand feet of a school.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley S. Turner. It was investigated by the Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force and the FBI.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."