A convicted sex offender living in Oklahoma was sentenced in federal court recently for conviction of sexual exploitation of minors. The Honorable Ronald A. White, District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, in Muskogee, sentenced David Anthony Baker, 35, of Howe, to 39 years in prison followed by lifetime probation.
Baker pleaded guilty in July to Production of Certain Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors (18 U.S.C.§ 2251[a] and [e]) and Production of Certain Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor by a Registered Sex Offender (18 U.S.C. § 2260A). The maximum statutory penalty for these offenses is 50 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or an additional 10 year sentence consecutive to sentencing for any other offenses.
According to prosecutors, Baker was a registered sex offender convicted in 2005 in California of crimes related to the sexual exploitation of minors, including . Between August 2011 and March 2013, Baker knowingly enticed a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing and distributing child pornography.
Baker was investigated by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) program Operation Predator. According to the HSI, Operation Predator is "an international initiative to identify, investigate and arrest child predators who possess, trade and produce child pornography; travel overseas for sex with minors; andengage in the sex trafficking of children."
In addition to federal sexual exploitation charges, Baker has also been charged with Oklahoma state crimes in LeFlore County. Baker is charged with rape by instrumentation, possession of child pornography, manufacturing child pornography, distributing child pornography, and violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act.
Read more about Oklahoma sex crimes here.
Baker was scheduled to appear for a hearing in LeFlore County District Court in early May, but he was unable to appear after being picked up by United States Marshals for the federal sexual exploitation charges.
Baker was initially charges after Homeland Security traced pornographic images of a 10-year-old boy from a photo-sharing site to an IP address at Baker's home. During a search, they found a storage device containing child pornography. Baker allegedly confessed to taking pornographic images and video of the child and distributing the images online.
He faces life in prison if convicted of the sex crimes with which he is charged at the state level.
Child pornography and sexual exploitation are but a few of the many crimes which may be charged as either a state offense or a federal offense, depending on the circumstances of the case. Often, state and federal law enforcement agencies work together to investigate and prosecute crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children. In addition to HSI's Operation Predator, the FBI's Innocence Project and Project Safe Childhood are a few of the federal initiatives intended to prevent the child sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
In Oklahoma, many of these crimes are investigated and prosecuted by the state's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, the local task force of the United States Justice Department's ICAC program.
