Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime News
CAPE GIRARDEAU – Jurors in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau on Wednesday found a man from Carter County, Missouri guilty of a felony count of production of child pornography.
Evidence and testimony at trial showed that Clinton Rongey, 52, used the victim, who was three and four years old at the time, to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child sexual abuse material. Rongey took more than 100 images of the victim between February and November of 2023.
Rongey is scheduled to be sentenced on April 29, 2025. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years.
The case was investigated by the Carter County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julie Hunter and Nathan Chapman are prosecuting the case.
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 the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.