West Plains, MO. – The West Plains PD recently announced that a man arrested in 2021 for receiving and redistributing child pornography was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison.
On June 6th, 2021 the investigation began when the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force was made aware of a file sharing system that was distributing 2000+ files depicting pornographic images of juveniles. The sharing system was traced back to a West Plains resident, Richard N. Wright. An examination of seized devices from Wright’s residence revealed over 8000 images of similar content. Wright also admitted to downloading files from similar networks, which included related images.
Prosecution on this case was performed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Wan. Investigation was done by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations in Springfield, and the West Plains PD. Richard Wright was sentenced by District Judge Douglas Harpool.
