Augusta man charged with producing child porn could face decades in federal prison

A Wichita area man accused of producing child pornography could spend several decades in federal prison if convicted of the alleged crimes.

Truman Barry Gentry, age 25, of Augusta, was charged Friday in U.S. District Court in Wichita with two counts of sexual exploitation of a child through producing child porn, one count of advertising for production of child porn and one count of possessing child porn.

Gentry was arrested and booked into the Sedgwick County jail on Thursday. He remained an inmate as of Sunday morning.

The criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office includes an affidavit written by a Homeland Security special agent.

Investigators with the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children task force picked up the investigation on Thursday, when they were provided a lead by a detective in North Carolina. That detective had infiltrated a private Kik group, where he communicated with Kik user “nothingshameful,” whose display name was Parody Catharsis. That user posted child porn in the group involving a young boy wearing diapers.

The detective got the user’s information from Kik, including an email address with Gentry’s name and an IP address. Cox Communications identified Gentry as the subscriber for the IP address and provided his Augusta home address.

Homeland Security then got a search warrant for Gentry’s home. Investigators found a boppy pillow, clothes and other background items seen in the video posted to Kik. They later searched his online storage account, after getting consent.

In a post-Miranda interview, Gentry admitted to creating and sharing the child porn on Kik. He also admitted to taking pictures and videos of a second victim in November and December 2019. The victims were a 2-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl.

“Gentry also admitted he used Snapchat to pose as a 19 year old to persuade and induce females as young as 12 years old to engage in sexually explicit conduct” that he recorded and saved, the affidavit states.

If convicted of producing and advertising child porn, each of the three charges is punishable by a minimum of 15 and maximum of 30 years in federal prison. The possession charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. All four charges have maximum fines of $250,000, which could mean up to $1 million combined in fines if convicted on all counts.

This story was originally published June 13, 2021 at 12:20 PM.