A Maplewood man has been ordered to spend 15 years in federal prison after he admitted to receiving child sexual abuse material, a case that prosecutors say started when his probation officer spotted something he was not supposed to have.
The defendant, 46-year-old Michael Throm, pleaded guilty in April to one count of receipt of child pornography, according to First Alert 4. Prosecutors say a probation officer found two unauthorized phones in Throm’s apartment in June 2025, and investigators allege he used the devices to access child sexual abuse material and tried to text images to a downstairs neighbor who is also a registered sex offender on supervised release. A judge also imposed an additional 18-month sentence for violating supervised release and ordered lifetime supervised release to follow Throm’s federal term, First Alert 4 reports.
Court docket shows parallel cases
The Eastern District of Missouri daily docket lists hearings for "USA v. Michael R. Throm" under multiple case numbers, reflecting an older matter alongside the newer federal proceedings tied to the 2025 device discovery. Those entries show a revocation hearing and a separate sentencing entry in July, according to court records.
Prior conviction and supervision
Throm was previously sentenced in 2014 to a little over five years in prison after a conviction for possessing child pornography and was placed on lifetime supervised release. That earlier sentence left him under strict supervision, and the probation officer’s discovery of unauthorized devices in 2025 triggered the new federal prosecution and a significantly longer prison term, First Alert 4 reports.
Prosecutorial context
Federal authorities in the Eastern District have increasingly highlighted cases in which supervision checks or cyber tips uncover repeat offenders using off-the-grid devices to seek out child sexual abuse material. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has detailed similar prosecutions and emphasized ongoing Project Safe Childhood efforts to identify and prosecute online exploitation, according to a recent U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.
What comes next
Throm will serve the federal prison term before beginning lifetime supervised release, and the Eastern District docket and local reporting indicate the sentence was imposed in July. Court records list the related case entries and hearings that produced the sentence, and the matter appears to be resolved at the district-court level for now, according to court records.
