A Davenport man has been sentenced yesterday to 30 years in federal prison for production and possession of child pornography.
According to court documents and evidence presented at sentencing, William Richard Trudell, 43, was identified by police as a person of interest after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received a cybertip. The cybertip came from the MeWe social media platform and reported that images of child pornography had been uploaded. Law enforcement officers tracked the email that was used to upload the images back to Trudell. During a search of his electronic devices, officers located hundreds of images of child pornography. Investigators also discovered that Trudell had been sexually abusing a child over a three-year period and produced child pornography images and videos of the abuse.
After completing his prison term, Trudell must serve eight years of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Trudell was also ordered to pay restitution.
United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement, and the Davenport Police Department investigated the case. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa prosecuted the case as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative. The initiative started in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action and public awareness to reduce the incidences of sexual exploitation of children.
Anyone with knowledge of a child being sexually abused should call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.
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