ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp on Tuesday sentenced a man from St. Peters, Missouri who filmed a sex act with a 14-year-old girl to six years in prison.
Donovan P. Walker, 27, will be on supervised release for 10 years and was also ordered to undergo sex offender, drug and mental health treatment, as appropriate.
Walker met the girl via the Tinder app in April of 2020. She originally told him she was 18, and then said she was 15 before eventually admitting her true age. The two exchanged nude photos via Snapchat, and met on four occasions, during which Walker gave the girl marijuana and then engaged in sex acts with her, he admitted in his guilty plea.
On May 26, 2020, Walker filmed the two engaged in sex in his car. In the recording, he asks the victim’s age and she answers, “14.” He then discusses her age multiple times. Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies interrupted Walker and arrested him.
Walker pleaded guilty in January to a charge of possession of child pornography.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson 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. 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.