ST. LOUIS (News First) — Steve G. Flores, a 51-year-old man from Lake St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis on Tuesday, confessing to taking explicit pictures of the sexual abuse of a young girl.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern Missouri District, Flores entered his guilty plea in the presence of U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White, acknowledging one count of production of child pornography.
The investigation began when a cloud storage company tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about two files that appeared to contain child sexual abuse material. Court-approved searches of Flores’ Google and cloud storage accounts unveiled hundreds of pictures and videos depicting the victim. A subsequent search of his residence on November 8, 2022, revealed electronic devices containing similar images, along with other materials featuring child pornography.
Scheduled for sentencing on March 5, 2024, Flores faces a mandatory minimum prison term of 15 years, with a maximum of 30. The plea agreement indicates that Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson will seek a 25-year sentence.
The FBI, in collaboration with the St. Charles County Police Department and St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force, conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson is prosecuting the case.
This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the escalating epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood coordinates federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals exploiting children via the Internet and to identify and rescue victims. More information about Project Safe Childhood is available at www.justice.gov/psc.
