A St. Louis County man, previously convicted of child molestation, has been handed down a 12-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of child pornography possession and attempting to transfer obscene material to a minor. Steven Martin Reich, 56, will face a lifetime of supervised release following his imprisonment, as sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk. The information was reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri in a news release.
Reich's case was brought to light via a CyberTipline Report after he uploaded explicit material of minors to the social media app Kik. Authorities found child sexual abuse material (CSAM) not just in his exchange with an individual he believed to be a minor, but also on his phone. According to Homeland Security Investigations, "Tasha," who Reich thought was a sixth-grader, may in fact be an adult male from Utah. The disturbing investigation, which led to Wednesday's sentence, uncovered that Reich had a search history for CSAM and had distributed such materials on Wickr, another social media platform.
The case against Reich was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson and investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Prosecutors revealed that Reich had a history of similar offenses, stretching back to a 1999 conviction for child molestation in the first degree, in St. Louis Circuit Court. This prior conviction placed him on the sex offender list.
Reich's sentencing ties back to "Project Safe Childhood," an initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse. The program calls upon an alliance of federal, state, and local resources to intensify efforts to identify and prosecute internet-based exploitation of children, and to help in the recovery of victims. Reich's conviction demonstrates the ongoing commitment to these objectives, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
