A registered sex offender who police say had child pornography on his home computer was being sought by investigators with the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force on Thursday.
Shawn Richard Seburn, 28, who has also used the name Frederick Allen, is wanted on a warrant charging him with first-degree promotion of child pornography. Investigators said Seburn may have left Columbia and may be in the Kansas City area.
A woman who was housesitting for Seburn discovered child pornography on his computer and alerted the Boone County Sheriff’s Department last month, according to a news release from the task force.
“An examination of the computer revealed several hundred images and videos of children as young as infants being sexually molested,” said Detective Andy Anderson, coordinator of the task force. Investigators say they do not think Seburn was directly involved with producing the images but that he downloaded and shared them online through file-sharing programs, according to the release.
Anderson said first-degree promotion of child pornography is a Class B felony that carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
Seburn served time in prison for a 1999 conviction in Illinois for possession of child pornography, Anderson said.
The task force, which was established Jan. 1, is a joint effort of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, the Columbia Police Department and the Boone County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Anyone with information about Seburn’s whereabouts is asked to call one of the three law enforcement agencies.