Mount Pleasant Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Child Pornography Offense

According to court documents, Jacob Hugo Alanis, age 21, was identified by the Mount Pleasant Police Department when they received a cyber tip from Dropbox alleging the presence of child pornography related to a particular email address. On October 15, 2019, law enforcement executed a search warrant at the residence associated with the email address. At the residence, Alanis admitted the email address belonged to him. Alanis also admitted downloading, watching, and trading child pornography. Law enforcement seized multiple electronic devices, on which law enforcement located hundreds of images and videos of child pornography.

Acting U.S. Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement.

The Mount Pleasant Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated this matter. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood” initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nation-wide 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.