Source: United States Department of Justice News
DES MOINES, IA – Chase Anthony Duncan, age 38, formerly of Grimes, was sentenced on August 11, 2022, to a total of 324 months in prison for Receiving and Possessing Child Pornography. Following completion of his prison term, Duncan will be on supervised release for ten years. There is no parole in the federal system. Duncan pleaded guilty in March 2022 to these offenses.
In July 2021, law enforcement received multiple cybertips alerting them that a Google account associated with Duncan contained suspected child pornography. Des Moines Police detectives obtained a search warrant for the Google account and discovered videos and images of child pornography in Duncan’s Google Photos account. In September 2021, Detectives obtained and executed a search warrant at Duncan’s Grimes residence. From Duncan’s bedroom police seized dozens of printed 8-by-10-inch images of child pornography and several electronic devices. A forensic examination of the devices revealed hundreds of images and videos depicting child pornography that Duncan had downloaded from the internet. In addition, police discovered several videos of Duncan sitting in his car in Des Moines area parking lots while Duncan recorded minor girls walking nearby who were unaware of his presence. Duncan was masturbating and narrating his sexual attraction to the girls. Police also located several videos from a “spy camera” that Duncan placed in the bathroom of a Des Moines area hotel guestroom while Duncan and two middle-school aged girls stayed at the hotel in March 2021. Duncan’s spy camera captured these two minors in various states of undress.
United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The case was investigated by the Des Moines Police Department, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI)’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.
This case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children. Any persons having knowledge of a child being sexually abused are encouraged to call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.