Park Hills man faces child pornography charges

A Park Hills man is charged with promoting and possessing child pornography.

Rodney Price, 38, has been charged with three counts of felony promoting child pornography in the first degree and three counts of felony possession of child pornography. St. Francois County Prosecuting Attorney Melissa Gilliam said Price is in custody and his bond is set at $150,000.

According to the probable cause statement by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, on March 9, portions of several files were downloaded from a local IP address.

The report states that the first file was a video lasting approximately three minutes, showing an adult male having intercourse with a female who appeared to be around the age of 10.

The second video, lasting about one minute and 19 seconds contains a female child, approximately age 11. In this video, the child is nude. The third video, approximately four seconds in length, shows a female child approximately 10 years of age performing a sex act with an adult male.

According to the report, the patrol was able to determine the IP address was registered to a Charter Communications customer and that after pursuing a search warrant, the investigator was able to determine that the files had been shared from Price’s computer to the internet.

The court document states that on April 9, a St. Francois County search warrant was served at the residence of Price. He was at the house at the time the warrant was executed. Price had a cellular phone in his possession that he allowed officers to search.

On the phone, officers found a file sharing app had been installed. During his initial interview, Price admitted that he had downloaded and viewed the pornography on his phone and believed that his business partners were trying to set him up.

Price claimed that sometimes pornography would just “pop up” on his cell phone.

According to the report, during a later forensic examination of the cell phone, three still images of child pornography were discovered saved on the device. The images had been downloaded from video files that had been downloaded on March 9.

Price

Matt McFarland is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3616, or at mmcfarland@dailyjournalonline.com.