GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Galesburg man will spend more than 15 years in a federal prison for distributing child pornography.

Chad Kraft, 41, got 15 years, eight months in prison for the crime plus 20 years of supervised release, with U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney saying that “it would be an understatement to describe Kraft’s conduct as grotesque.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says that in March 2022, they got a tip that Kraft had child porn. They seized his phone and say they found he was using a messaging app to share explicit images of young children.

This is Kraft’s third sex crime-related conviction. In 2011, he was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. In 2015, he was convicted for failing to register as a sex offender. Federal prosecutors say he used aliases, different dates of births and Social Security numbers to avoid registration and stay off authorities’ radar. When investigators caught up with him in March, he had not registered as a sex offender since May 2021.

Federal investigators praised community members for speaking up to lead them to Kraft.

“This case highlights the important role our community members play in bringing predators
like Kraft to justice,” Homeland Security Investigators Detroit Special Agent in Charge Angie Salazar said in a Monday statement. “By seeing something and speaking up, we can all work to end the victimization of innocent children.”

If you have information about the exploitation of a child, you can call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1.800.843.5678.