William Mort, 32, of Odessa, appeared before Judge Josh Taylor, in the Lafayette County Circuit Court and entered pleas of guilty to six counts of the Class B Felony of Possession of Child Pornography. Lafayette County Prosecutor, Kristen Ellis Hilbrenner, represented the State at the plea and sentencing. By pleading guilty the defendant admitted to possessing moving images or videos of obscene materials involving children under the age of eighteen as participants in sexually explicit conduct.

The charges against Mort arose out of an investigation conducted by the Odessa Police Department after they were contacted by a Cyber Crime Task Force Unit that flagged images received by Mort as suspected child pornography. When an officer with Odessa interviewed the defendant, Mort admitted that the email and username linked to the images belonged to him. The defendant also provided electronic devices that were searched by law enforcement. Hundreds of images and numerous videos that contained child pornography were located on those devices.

The defendant was facing a maximum of 15 years on each of the Class B Felonies. At the time of the plea, Mort was sentenced to 10 years on Counts I-V and 8 years on Count VI to run consecutively, for a total of 18 years. He was remanded to the custody of the Sheriff for transport to the Missouri Department of Corrections to serve his sentence. After the plea, Prosecutor Hilbrenner said, “Although this defendant had no prior criminal history, I felt this was the type of case where prison time was the only just outcome. We are pleased Judge Taylor agreed and sentenced the defendant accordingly. The defendant may not have personally coerced these very young children into posing for pictures or performing for the videos, but every single time he viewed any of the images, he was re-victimizing each child. This type of behavior deserves harsh punishment, and thanks to the hard work of law enforcement, that is exactly what he got.”