A 47-year-old St. Ignatius man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for transporting child pornography and failing to register as a sex offender.
Justin Douglas Lampke, who pleaded guilty in October 2020 to failure to register as a sex offender and in March 2021 to transporting child pornography, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Missoula on Aug. 3. As part of his sentence, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ordered Lampke to pay $3,000 in restitution, forfeit electronics seized in the case and be subject to 15 years of supervised release.
According to court documents, Lampke has several prior sexual abuse convictions beginning in 1992 in the state of Oregon, where his victims were as young as 5 and 6 years old. While placed on supervised release for those convictions, the defendant violated his parole on multiple occasions.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Lampke absconded from Oregon supervision in March 2017, approximately when he arrived in Montana, and had not registered as a sex offender.
After an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force detective received multiple National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Cybertips regarding an individual transferring child pornography files via Facebook, Lampke was caught hiding in Montana under an alias in January 2020.
Child pornography was located on multiple devices seized from his residence, and agents determined Lampke transported or moved child pornography to a USB storage device from another digital device in May 2019.
This case was initiated under the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative, which was launched in 2006 to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children. Through a network of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and advocacy organizations, Project Safe Childhood attempts to protect children by investigating and prosecuting offenders involved in child sexual exploitation. It is implemented through partnerships that include the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.