SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for producing and distributing child pornography.

Genard Alonzo Toney, 37, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 30 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Toney to a lifetime of supervised release following incarceration.

On May 29, 2018, Toney pleaded guilty to one count of using a minor to produce child pornography and to one count of receiving and distributing child pornography.

According to court documents, Toney engaged in a pattern of soliciting images of child pornography through the internet.  Toney pretended to be a female seeking female relationship on a dating website and would text message with women he met on the dating website. Toney used a cell phone application, which provided him with a fake, anonymous cell phone number, cloaking his own number from identification.  Generally, one of the first things Toney would ask the person he was messaging with was whether they had any children. Toney would then ask them to send him a sexually explicit picture of the children.

Investigators examined devices seized from Toney and found 283 separate conversations, consisting of 13,676 messages Toney engaged in with the women he met on the dating website, and multiple images of child pornography.

At the time of this offense, Toney was on state probation after being convicted of three counts of distributing a controlled substance.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the Greene County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, the Springfield, Mo., Police Department, and  Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

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."