ST. LOUIS – A man from Manchester, Missouri who had previously been convicted of a charge of possession of child pornography admitted on Monday being caught again with child sexual abuse material.
Eric D. Goodwin, now 41, was sentenced in 2020 to two years in prison and a life term of supervised release. In June of 2022, while Goodwin was on house arrest after his release from prison, a U.S. probation officer doing a home visit discovered that Goodwin had access to a room with computers and electronic devices. Goodwin then admitted possessing an iPhone, a tablet computer and a USB drive containing at least 882 images and 624 videos of child sexual abuse that he found using the Telegram app and on the dark web.
Goodwin was also sharing child pornography with someone via SnapChat, his plea agreement says.
Goodwin, by pleading guilty to a charge of possession of child pornography as a prior offender, now faces 10 to 20 years in prison when sentenced Jan. 4, 2023. Both prosecutors and Goodwin’s attorney agreed as part of the plea to recommend a ten-year term. He was taken into custody at the end of Monday’s plea hearing.
The U.S. Probation Office and the FBI investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson is 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.