A man from a small town about 30 miles northeast of Cedar Rapids will spend 40 years in federal prison on sexual exploitation and child pornography charges.
Prosecutors say 37-year-old Bryce Hans Plower of Prairieburg posed as a teenager and sent messages on Snapchat, Instagram and text messages asking minors to engage in sex acts, then send him photos and videos. Court records show Plower sent a 12 year old over 5000 messages. He paid several victims with gift cards or through an app.
Plower also admitted to buying other sexually explicit photos and videos online. Investigators found 5400 of those images were stored on his phone.
(Reporting by Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)