Joplin man sent to prison in online child enticement case

Jul. 28—SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A federal judge has sentenced a Joplin man to 14 years in prison for sexual enticement of a 15-year-old boy through social media.

At a sentencing hearing Tuesday in federal court in Springfield, U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool ordered that Clinton A. Yeats, 29, serve the entirety of the term in a federal prison without parole and remain on supervised release for another 15 years once he has completed the sentence.

Yeats pleaded guilty Feb. 23 to child sexual exploitation in the case that began Jan. 9, 2020, when the social media app Snapchat reported finding four files containing child pornography that had been uploaded by the defendant, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office in Springfield.

An investigation by the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force and Homeland Security Investigations led to the discovery that Yeats had met and developed a relationship with a 15-year-old boy through the dating application Grindr and Snapchat messaging.

In the course of the relationship, Yeats solicited and received sexually explicit images of the boy and sent him explicit images of himself, according to the U.S. attorney's office. They had also discussed meeting in person to engage in sexual activity, the U.S. attorney's release said.

Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.