The Henry County Circuit Courtroom sentenced a Clinton man to 23 life sentences for 23 counts of intercourse crimes, together with eight counts of intercourse trafficking, based on prosecutor LaChrisha Grey.
Prices towards Derek Brett Roberts, 44, had been initially filed in June 2022. Amongst different issues, prosecutors mentioned Roberts filmed himself performing intercourse acts on kids in his house. He was found guilty for all counts by a jury in June 2024.
Prices additionally embrace two counts of selling youngster pornography, and 13 counts associated to sexual assault of a minor. The assaults included rape, sodomy and forcible oral intercourse, filmed and saved on Roberts’ cellphone, based on court docket paperwork. A number of the movies had been proven in court docket.
Courtroom paperwork present that almost all of Roberts’ victims had been beneath 12 years outdated. Some had been youthful than 9.
Roberts attended Samford College in Alabama and was licensed as a pharmacy technician in Missouri, based on court docket data. He was additionally beforehand a licensed pharmacy technician in California.
Roberts was charged after an investigation led by the Drug and Crime Management division Missouri State Freeway Patrol, based on a information launch from Grey’s workplace. Investigators searched Roberts’ house and units, discovering the vast majority of the kid pornography on his cellphone.
Three kids, who weren’t named in court docket paperwork because of their age, offered statements to the court docket about being sexually assaulted by Roberts, based on court docket data. All three have been recognized with post-traumatic stress dysfunction, court docket paperwork present.
This isn’t Roberts’ first time being convicted of crimes associated to youngster pornography. Roberts pleaded responsible to possessing greater than 20 items of kid pornography in 2021, a case additionally prosecuted by Grey. He was sentenced to 3 concurrent sentences of 10 years, to be served within the South Central Correctional Middle in Licking, Missouri.
Reporting from The Star’s Ilana Arougheti contributed to this text.
