St Joseph Man Receives Federal Sentence For Child Pornography

A St Joseph man has been sentenced in federal court to 23 years in prison without parole for producing and possessing child pornography.

35 year old Tyler B. Wirth will also be on supervised release and required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life following incarceration has been order to pay over $14,000 in victim restitution.

Last January, Wirth pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. He admitted to producing pornography images of three children. He then distributed the images to multiple uses on a Kik application during sexual conversations with those users. He also conversed with the users about how to go about sexually abusing the victims.

Wirth admitted that he communicated extensively with others over the Kik application in July and August 2020 about his desire to sexually abuse children. He also received hundreds of images and videos of child pornography from other Kik users and distributed other images and videos from his possession.

Wirth seized Wirth’s electronic media and cell phone in August of 2020 while executing a search warrant. There were hundreds of other videos and images of child pornography on the cell phone seized.