Finney County Man Sentenced For Producing Child Porn

A Finney County man has been sentenced to more than 21 years without parole in federal prison for producing child pornography, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today.

Gary Jay Hibler, 46, Pierceville, Kan., appeared today before U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, who sentenced him to 262 months in federal prison.

Hibler pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. He initially was charged in a criminal complaint filed Aug. 26, 2010. The investigation began in May 2010 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minot, North Dakota, received information about an Australian couple that had been investigated for sexual abuse of their children.

Computer records showed the couple had been trading child pornography with a man in North Dakota. When investigators seized the North Dakota man’s computer, they found a screen capture recording of a live Web camera transmission in which a nude adult male and a child were shown masturbating together. The images came from a computer user calling himself “Pepsicanman64.”

Investigators followed an electronic trail for Pepsicanman64 to an Internet account in Pierreville, Kan., and they identified Hibler as the adult in the photographs.

Grissom commended Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Hart for their work on the case.