PRESS RELEASE

Columbia Sex Offender Sentenced for Obscenity

Thursday, October 19, 2023

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Columbia, Mo., man has been sentenced in federal court for uploading an obscene bestiality video to his online Google account.

Brian Joe Gravatt, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes on Wednesday, Oct. 18, to five years in federal prison without parole.

Gravatt was required to register as a sex offender due to his prior convictions of statutory rape and statutory sodomy against 14- and 15-year-old victims He was on probation at the time of this offense for failing to register as a sex offender.

On April 4, 2023, Gravatt pleaded guilty to one count of transporting obscene material. Gravatt admitted that on Oct. 28, 2020, he uploaded a 33-minute video to his Google Photos account that depicts an adult woman performing a series of graphic sex acts with a large dog. Gravatt acknowledged the video is intended to appeal to prurient interests and that, judged by contemporary, adult, community standards of the community, depicts sex acts in a patently offensive way and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

The video was discovered by law enforcement while investigating a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding a complaint of suspected child pornography stored in Gravatt’s Google Photos account.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley S. Turner. It was investigated by the Boone County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

Updated October 19, 2023