Donald S. Boyce, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that Michael B. Stephens, Jr., 43, of Red Bud, Illinois, has pled guilty to an indictment charging him with two counts of production of child pornography. Stephens faces a term of imprisonment of 15 to 60 years, a fine of up to $500,000, and a term of supervised release of five years to life. Stephens will also have to register as a sex offender after he is released from prison. Stephens’s sentencing has been scheduled for June 29, 2018, at 10:00 a.m., in East St. Louis, Illinois.
The charges against Stephens stemmed from an investigation which revealed that in 2016 he used cellular phones and tablets to record himself engaging in sexual intercourse with a minor female on at least twenty-five occasions.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Springfield Child Exploitation Task Force, as well as the Waterloo, Illinois, Police Department. The case is assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Daniel T. Kapsak.
