ST. LOUIS – Today, U.S. District Judge John A. Ross sentenced a man from Jefferson County, Missouri who is already serving a 50-year prison term for the sexual exploitation of a minor to 10 years on gun charges. The 10-year sentence will be consecutive to the present 50-year prison term for a total of 60 years confinement.
On April 11, 2018, Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies received a tip that Earl G. Rice Jr., who had active arrest warrants and a pending sex charge in St. Clair County, was preparing to flee to avoid arrest. Rice had a .45-caliber pistol in his pocket. After his arrest, deputies found more than 70 other rifles and shotguns, as well as two silencers.
Rice was indicted in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in 2018 on one felony count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one felony count of possession of firearms without a serial number. A jury convicted Rice, 63, of those charges in March.
Rice was indicted in 2019 in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Illinois on charges of child enticement, travel with the intent to engage in sex with a minor and producing sexually explicit images of that minor.
On Valentine’s Day in 2018, Rice drove from his home in Dittmer to the victim’s home in Belleville, then took her to a motel where he engaged in sex acts with her and produced
sexually explicit images of her. He was convicted of those charges last year and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cassandra Wiemken prosecuted the case.