Previously convicted sex offender sentenced in Missouri to 135 years for producing child pornography, sexually abusing a child for 4 years

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City-area sex offender was sentenced in state court Thursday to 135 years in prison for producing child pornography while abusing a young girl.

This sentence resulted from an extensive investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI, and the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force.

Charles R. Burge, 36, of Kansas City, Missouri, was sentenced after pleading guilty to the following charges: three counts of first-degree statutory rape, one count of sexually exploiting a minor, one count of enticing a child, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

This investigation began with a request to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) from a foreign law enforcement agency to help identify a specific series of child pornography images.

As a result of that request, HSI investigators in Boston, Massachusetts, began attempting to identify the victim depicted in the series of images in March 2014. The particular series consists of about 140 images which chronicle about four years of the sexual abuse of a girl between the ages of 8 and 11. The images had been altered using digital software to hide items in the images that might reveal the perpetrator’s identity or location.

HSI special agents in Boston and Kansas City used state-of-the-art computer forensic methods and identified the victim in the photos as a girl living in Platte County, Missouri.

Law enforcement officers served a search warrant at a Kansas City residence on Oct. 3, 2014. Burge and the girl depicted in the photos were both present when the search warrant was served. Investigators also found numerous items that matched backgrounds in the pornographic image series. Burge was immediately arrested, charged the next day, and has remained in the Platte County jail since then.

Burge had previously been convicted of a 1996 rape of an 8-year-old child in Arkansas. At the time of his October 2014 arrest, he was on probation in Platte County for failing to register as a sex offender.

Burge was sentenced to 30 years in prison on each of three counts of first-degree statutory rape, 25 years for sexually exploiting a minor, 20 years for enticing a child, and 10 years for endangering the welfare of a child. He was ordered to serve the first five sentences consecutively, resulting in a 135-year total sentence.

This investigation was conducted under HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 14,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2015, nearly 2,400 individuals were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 1,000 victims identified or rescued.

HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Hearing impaired users can call TTY 802-872-6196.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.

For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI’s Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page.