By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A Jasper resident has been charged in federal court with receipt and distribution of child pornography over the Internet.

Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield show that Donald L. Zaerr, 58, was charged with the offense following a search of his home Thursday by state and federal authorities.

Members of the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force and a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized 12 computers, four thumb drives, 28 computer disks and two notebooks from Zaerr’s home at 417 N. Main St. in Jasper.

The search warrant was obtained based on information developed by Joplin Police Department cyber crimes Detective Chip Root. A probable-cause affidavit filed by an ICE special agent states that Root located extensive child pornography files at a Web address Oct. 7 and eventually traced the address through an Internet provider to Zaerr’s home.

According to the affidavit, the Web address was leased to Zaerr’s deceased father.

Zaerr allegedly told them that he had been viewing child pornography for the past 10 years and that he had saved somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 images on computer hard drives.

Zaerr allegedly admitted that several of the computers seized from his home contained a large number of images and that he had posted such images on the Internet where others could obtain them. The affidavit states that images found by investigators showed children as young as 1 year old being subjected to sexual acts by adults.