Marine at Fort Leonard Wood Sentenced for Child Pornography

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - A U.S. Marine Corps private who was stationed for training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., has been sentenced in federal court for transporting child pornography across state lines.

Gevoni Rayon Brown, 23, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool on Tuesday, April 16, to 12 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Brown to 10 years of supervised release following incarceration and ordered Brown to pay $24,000 in restitution to eight victims of child pornography discovered on his cell phone. Brown will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison and will be subject to federal and state sex offender registration requirements, which may apply throughout his life.

On Sept. 21, 2023, Brown pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography. Brown admitted that he exchanged sexually explicit videos with a 15-year-old female in California with whom he communicated via Instagram, Snapchat, and Discord. Brown was stationed in Florida at the time of these conversations, from March 4 to June 26, 2022, before being stationed in North Carolina.

Brown arrived at Fort Leonard Wood for training on Nov. 9, 2022.

On Dec. 14, 2022, federal agents executed a search warrant on Brown's barracks room and seized two cell phones, which contained child pornography. Brown admitted that he carried the cell phones with him on the plane when he traveled to Missouri.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Wan. It was investigated by U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Division, Homeland Security Investigations, the Springfield, Mo., Police Department, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the Richmond, Calif., Police Department, and the Contra Costa County, Calif., District Attorney's Office.

Project Safe Childhood

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."