CEDAR RAPIDS – This Iowa man begged a young girls for explicit nude photos, while he himself possessed thousands of such images, then a child’s mom turned him in to cops. Now prison awaits.
Steven Niedert (pictured above), age 47, from Dubuque, Iowa, received a 20-year prison term after an August 14, 2023, guilty plea to one count of receipt of child pornography.
In a plea agreement, Niedert admitted he communicated with an eleven-year-old girl in November and December 2017. The communications occurred using an app called AntiChat, which does not automatically retain copies of communications. During those communications, Niedert asked the girl to send him sexually explicit photos, including two photos in which the victim was digitally penetrating herself. The victim’s mother discovered the communications and reported them to the police.
Police officers used Niedert’s AntiChat and social media usernames to identify him as the individual communicating with the victim. Pursuant to search warrant, officers searched Niedert’s Dubuque home in January 2019. The officers seized numerous electronic devices. Officers discovered thousands of files containing child sexual abuse material on the devices. The files included the explicit images the victim had sent, as well as communications and images Niedert solicited from other minors.
Niedert was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Niedert was sentenced to 240 months’ imprisonment. He was ordered to pay $9,000 in restitution. He must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
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.”
Niedert is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Patrick Reinert and Tony Morfitt and investigated by the Dubuque Police Department, the Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
