KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former Independence, Mo., high school teacher pleaded guilty in federal court today to possessing child pornography.
Jason R. Pink, 44, of Independence, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to a federal information that charges him with possessing child pornography in 2014.
At the time of the offense, Pink was employed as a teacher at Fort Osage High School. He was identified as a customer during an investigation into a movie production company located outside the United States that operated a Web site advertising child pornography DVDs and streaming videos for sale. Law enforcement officers seized hundreds of DVDs from the business and found information in the company’s records that Pink had purchased child pornography on multiple occasions.
U.S. Postal Inspectors executed a search warrant at Pink’s residence and located several child pornography DVDs that he had purchased from the company. Inspectors also located a 16-gigabyte thumb drive inserted into a computer tower that included thousands of “naturist” or “nudist” type images that are not necessarily child pornography but which include nude minors from the age of approximately 12 to 18 years. Also included in this thumb drive were approximately 30 images of child pornography.
Under federal statutes, Pink is subject to a sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison without parole.
