Juniata Man Sentenced for Child Pornography Offenses

 

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Coren C. Potts, 53, of Juniata, Nebraska, was sentenced May 14, 2024, in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska for receipt and distribution of child pornography. U.S. Senior District Court Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Coen to 180 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Coen’s release from prison, he will begin a 15-year term of supervised release and will continue to be required to register as a sex offender.

In March 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received 8 different CyberTip reports from a cloud-based storage account, that a user had uploaded at least 50 files of visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct featuring children. NCMEC forwarded the tips on to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Agents reviewed the files associated with the CyberTips and found they depicted child pornography. Search warrants were obtained for both the wireless account and the cloud account associated with a Kansas phone number which returned to Potts, residing in Juniata, Nebraska.  Potts was a registered sex offender, having been convicted in 2008 in the federal district court in Kansas for possession and receipt/distribution of child pornography.  At that time, the investigation was turned over to the Nebraska State Patrol. 

Potts was interviewed and volunteered there was pornography on his phone.  When confronted about information about the CyberTips and shown images included in the NCMEC reports, Potts showed investigators several images of child pornography that he had downloaded two days earlier.  Potts’ phone was forensically examined and a review of its contents located 85 video files and 222 still images of child pornography.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Nebraska State Patrol.