Fisk, Mo., man sentenced for transporting child pornography

ST. LOUIS -- A Fisk, Mo., man was sentenced Monday afternoon to nearly 15 years in federal prison for attempting to transport child pornography.

Michael Charles Dissler, 53, was sentenced to 173 months on one felony count of attempted transportation of child porn­ography by U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry, according to the federal prosecutor's office.

Upon his release from prison, Dissler will be placed on supervised release for the remainder of his life.

With his earlier plea, Dissler reportedly admitted on Oct. 2, 2007, he attempted to transport an image of child pornography over the Internet by sending the image as an attachment in an e-mail. Dissler was using his personal computer when he attempted to transport the image.

Forensic analysis of Dissler's computer reportedly revealed Dissler had more than 600 image files of child pornography, that is images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

During an interview Jan. 30, Dissler reportedly admitted he had attempted to transport a video file containing child pornography and he had collected all of his images of child pornography on the Internet.

Dissler, who also was charged in Butler County, was sentenced in September to the maximum of four years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on the Class D felony of possession of child pornography by Presiding Circuit Judge Mark Richardson.

The charges against Dissler stemmed from an investigation by Jeff Shackelford with the Poplar Bluff Police Department and other members of the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force from the Butler County Sheriff's Department and Dexter Police Department.

The investigation into three "cybertipline reports concluded that an adult male," later identified as Dissler, had "conversed with an underage female by use of the Internet chat provider AOL (America Online Inc.), and that the conversation was of a sexual nature, specifically Dissler asking the child for oral sex," Shackelford said in his probable cause affidavit on file with the Butler County court.

The cybertipline information also included AOL reporting "they had caught the transmission of two video files they suspected to be child pornography being sent from an e-mail account owned by Dissler," said Shackelford, who serves as commander of the Cyber Crimes Task Force.

On Jan. 15, Shackelford said, he went to Dissler's residence in the 7000 block of County Road 644 to follow up on the tips generated from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

A consensual search of Dissler's computer, as well as printed images from his computer, which were housed in his bedroom, revealed "several images of child pornography ¿ both on printed paper, as well as residing in saved files to the hard drive of (his) computer," Shackelford explained.

There were numerous images, he said, depicting children of prepubescent ages, as well as numerous ones of children, around the age of puberty, in sexually explicit poses.

Dissler, Shackelford said, made statements that he had pictures of "young girls in their early to mid-teens, both on his computer, as well as printed, and directed officers to the location of where he stored the printed images in a box under his bed ¿ "

Furthermore, Shackelford said, one video file of suspected child pornography was found on Dissler's computer, which "depicted a 10- to 12-year-old female nude on a bed performing" a sex act.

Other images of "child pornography and suspected child pornography have been located on Dissler's computer hard drive, and in the 'My Documents' folder of said hard drive," Shackelford said.

After being arrested and told of his rights, Shackelford said, Dissler admitted "ownership of the computer," as well as "claimed ownership, prior to its termination, of the AOL account 'dss15.'"

That account, he said, was the one to "which several of the printed images of child pornography showed to have been sent to, thus showing that he was, in fact, the user of the account that received and printed and saved these images of child pornography.

"Furthermore, Dissler admitted to receiving and sending files of suspected child pornography through the use of AOL e-mail accounts."

Dissler reportedly was convicted of sodomy, involving a 9-year-old boy, in August 1995.