Springfield Man Sentenced to 35 Years for Child Sexual Abuse, Child Pornography

 News Release:

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for sexually assaulting a child victim and recording the abuse on his cell phone.

William Shane Berg, 50, was sentenced by U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to 35 years in federal prison without parole. The court also sentenced Berg to spend the rest of his life on supervised release following incarceration.

On June 2, 2022, Berg pleaded guilty to one count of the sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of receiving child pornography over the internet. Berg admitted that he sexually abused a minor victim, identified in court documents as John Doe 2.

Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Berg’s residence on April 12, 2020, and seized a laptop computer, VHS tapes, CDs, two laptop hard drives, a portable hard drive, a CD writer, USB drives, a camera and media card, three Chromebooks, and a cell phone. Investigators found multiple files on the cell phone and the laptop computer that depicted Berg sexually abusing John Doe 2. They also found additional files of child pornography that Berg downloaded from the internet.

When the victim was interviewed at the Springfield Child Advocacy Center, he told investigators that Berg started sexually abusing him when he was in the fifth grade. He said Berg took videos on his cell phone during the sexual abuse.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller. It was investigated by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, the FBI and the Springfield, Mo., Police Department.

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.

Updated April 11, 2023