Robert Merriman

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of Illinois, Robert Merriman, 25, of Springfield, Illinois, was sentenced to 96 months in prison, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release, for distribution and possession of child pornography. The office said he was arrested and indicted in March 2020 and pleaded guilty in October 2022. The federal court docket for the case, United States v. Merriman, shows an indictment filed on March 4, 2020, a plea hearing in September 2022 with a report and recommendation on the guilty plea, and an order adopting that recommendation in October 2022. The federal court docket lists a judgment on March 28, 2023 and an amended judgment on August 3, 2023, the contents of which could not be retrieved; the 96-month figure is as stated in the March 24, 2023 release. The office said that at the sentencing hearing the government presented evidence that between April and August 2019 Merriman engaged in the receipt, distribution and trading of child pornography using multiple online applications. The Reddit connection comes from the defendant's own account as relayed in the release: according to his own statements, he "owned" a group on Reddit with 900 members where he posted child pornography. The release does not name the group, and neither the ownership claim nor the membership figure is independently confirmed in the records reviewed. Senior U.S. District Judge Sue E. Myerscough found that his conduct included distributing and receiving more than six hundred images or videos of child pornography, and that at least one image included sexually explicit conduct involving a toddler or portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct. The office listed statutory penalties of five to twenty years in prison for distribution and up to ten years for possession. Homeland Security Investigations investigated, with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner K. Jacobs prosecuted the case under Project Safe Childhood. The release does not say whether Reddit reported the group or removed it.