PRESS RELEASE

Springfield Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Sexual Exploitation of 11-Year-Old Minnesota Victim

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Springfield, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for his sexual exploitation of an 11-year-old child victim in Minnesota.

Jeffrey Scott Saltkill, 36, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Saltkill will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison and will be subject to federal and state sex offender registration requirements, which may apply throughout his life.

On Dec. 1, 2022, Saltkill pleaded guilty to one count of the sexual exploitation of children. Saltkill admitted that he communicated online and via text with an 11-year-old Minnesota girl after she posted her cell phone number on the chat website Omegle. Posing as two separate persons (including a teenage boy), Saltkill engaged in graphic sexual conversations and exchanged pornographic images with the child victim. She gave Saltkill the name of her town and school, and he indicated that he would visit her in person.

When the child victim’s mother handed her daughter’s cell phone over to law enforcement, an undercover FBI agent responded to Saltkill, using the persona of the child victim. Saltkill told the undercover agent that he was in the child victim’s town, but the undercover agent told him they were out of town. Saltkill continued to communicate with the undercover agent, whom he believed to be the child victim, sending links to videos of adult pornography and urging her to engage in sexual activity.

Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Saltkill’s residence. Saltkill told investigators that he was addicted to communicating with children and obtaining pornographic images. He said he had similar sexual communications with four or five additional minors within the last two years. 

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Wan. It was investigated by the FBI, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, 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 . For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."