Probation granted in child porn case
Garrett Warfield
A former Northwest Missouri State University student who pleaded guilty in February to possessing child pornography was given a suspended 30-year prison sentence Monday in Nodaway County Circuit Court along with five years of strictly supervised probation.
Presiding Circuit Judge Roger Prokes sentenced Garrett Warfield to five years in prison on a charge of possession of child pornography, 10 years in prison on a second felony charge of possession of child pornography to be served consecutively with the first charge, and 15 years on a third charge of possession of child pornography to be served consecutively with the second charge.
Warfield was arrested last June following an investigation by the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.
The investigation began in late January 2015 when Detective Sgt. Katherine Smith of the Platte County Sheriff’s Office received Microsoft-generated CyberTipline reports from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Authorities said the investigation revealed that about 50 images of naked male children between the approximate ages of 3 and 14 had been uploaded from an Internet protocol address, or IP, registered in the name of one of Warfield’s parents.
It was then found that Garrett Warfield was a student at Northwest Missouri State University residing in the 2500 block of Aurora Avenue in Maryville.
After Warfield was placed in custody, Smith searched a seized a thumb drive and discovered more than 100 explicit images along with several pornographic videos involving male children and teenagers between the ages of 4 and 17.
The videos, according to court records, also contained scenes of adults and children committing various sexual acts together.
Following the initial investigation and interrogation, the seized materials were submitted to the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory in Kansas City for analysis.
Smith said at the time that a forensic technician at the lab confirmed the existence of child pornography on the files, which led to the issuance of an arrest warrant.
In court on Monday, Prokes said he “struggled” with making a distinction between pornographers who create such photographs and videos and those who view them.
He also told Warfield’s parents, who were in attendance, not to blame themselves for their son’s offenses, and commended the couple for allowing Warfield to live in their Kansas City-area home during his probation.
According to court records, the residence is located more than 1,000 feet from any school, playground, or park.
During his remarks from the bench, Prokes criticized a Missouri statute that provides convicted offenders with a day of credit for each day of probation served without violations, meaning that Warfield’s probationary period could be shortened to two and a half years.
Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice has asked the court for a 15-year prison sentence, and said he believed treatment was not a valid option in Warfield’s case.
Defense attorney David Bell presented an expert witness, Laura Mars of Key Point Counseling Services, who had tested Warfield and determined he was not a “fixated pedophile” but a repressed gay man.
In order to fulfill the conditions of his probation, Warfield was ordered by the judge, among other things, to wear a GPS monitor and participate in an intensive counseling program.
