A 36-year-old Pierre man convicted of Possession of Child Pornography was sentenced this week (Mon.) in federal court.
David Foster was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, followed by 5 years of supervised release, $130,500 in restitution paid to 18 different victims whose images were found on his phone and a $5,000 assessment to the Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund. He pled guilty on May 1, 2019.
In early 2017, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations initiated an undercover operation targeting chat rooms and child sexual exploitation on the “Kik” Messenger application. During the operation, the Kik group “No Limits” was discovered. An HSI agent recorded the activity of the group to include capturing images and videos of child exploitation/pornography that were shared among the group. Each member of
the group received all of the images/videos shared by other users in the group each time a user logged into the Kik application. One of the members of the group was identified as Foster, who was using the screen name “smartdguy.”
On May 4, 2017, a search warrant was executed in Pierre. A forensic analysis determined Foster’s iPhone6 contained over 4,700 images (including duplicates) and 100 videos (including duplicates) of child pornography.
Foster was immediately turned over to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
This case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative of the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
