Washington man gets 15 years for child pornography charge

DAVENPORT — Kendal Duane Letcher, a 64-year-old man from Washington, was sentenced Monday, Sept. 26, to 180 months in federal prison following his plea to a charge of Receipt and Distribution of Child Pornography. Letcher was ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to each of his four victims, totaling $12,000.

According to court documents, an investigation into a peer-to-peer file sharing system identified that Letcher was allowing others to download child pornography that he made available. Letcher admitted to viewing child pornography for the past 10 years, as well as utilizing the file sharing system since 2014. The investigation revealed that Letcher had amassed 3,785 images and 485 videos containing child sex abuse materials.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children.

Any persons having knowledge of a child being sexually abused are encouraged to call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.