Alton man who livestreamed sexual abuse of child gets 33-year sentence
A 42-year-old Alton man has been sentenced to 33 years in federal prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for livestreaming himself sexually abusing a child under 12.
Travis J. Varble, who is already in jail on state charges of abusing the same victim, was sentenced in federal court on Thursday, U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft announced Friday.
“It is difficult to imagine much that is more reprehensible than molesting a child, but Mr. Varble found a way to aggravate his deviance by livestreaming the abuse over the internet,” Weinhoeft said in a statement.
What Varble was doing to the child was uncovered when law-enforcement officials in Auburn, Alabama, while conducting an unrelated investigation, came across a video that contained child pornography.
The perpetrator and child in the video were unidentified. To learn who they were, officers forwarded the video to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The case was assigned to federal investigators in St. Louis and it was determined that Varble was the perpetrator, Weinhoeft said. Weinhoeft also said a second video was uncovered that showed Varble abusing the same child.
Varble livestreamed his sexual abuse and others who were watching the livestream recorded the abuse and distributed it on the internet, Weinhoeft said.
Investigators found that Varble had been prosecuted separately in Madison County for sexually abusing the same victim. He received a 17-year sentence for predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim younger than 13 and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim younger than 13 in the state prosecution.
A federal indictment was returned against Varble in March 2018 on two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of distribution of child pornography. Varble pleaded guilty to the charges on Jan. 17 and was sentenced Thursday in Benton by federal Judge Staci Yandle.
The initial sentence imposed by Yandle was 444 months, but she gave him credit for the 46 months that he has already served in state prison for related criminal conduct. So, he received 398 months, or 33 years. The federal prison sentence will run concurrently with the state sentence Varble is currently serving, Weinhoeft said.
Weinhoeft said this case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The case against Varble was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Scott.
This story was originally published August 2, 2019 at 3:59 PM.
