Source: Office of United States Attorneys
CAPE GIRARDEAU – U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk on Friday sentenced a man who recorded his rape of a minor with an intellectual disability to 30 years in prison.
In March of 2024, the 17-year-old victim’s mother contacted the Poplar Bluff Police Department about Jason R. Hicks-Simpson. The victim told investigators that Hicks-Simpson had been sexually abusing her since she was five, his plea agreement says. She also said Hicks-Simpson threatened to kill her and her kittens if she did not keep the secret. Hicks-Simpson told police that it had only happened once several months earlier. Investigators found videos dating back to May of 2023 on his phone, the plea agreement says.
Hicks-Simpson, of Poplar, Bluff, 46, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau in October to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Hicks-Simpson will now be transferred to state court to face charges there.
The Poplar Bluff Police Department and the FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Hunter prosecuted 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.