A 40-year-old Smithton man entered a guilty plea Tuesday in federal court on charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child porn.

Kyle W. Oberg now faces prison terms of 15 to 30 years for each of the two sexual exploitation charges and up to 20 years for the child porn charge, plus fines and supervised release.

His sentencing date is Jan. 27, 2017. Oberg has been detained since his arraignment on Aug 22, 2013.

Donald S. Boyce, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, said that on July 18, 2013, the Smithton Police Department executed a search warrant at Oberg’s residence and seized Oberg’s desktop computer.

Oberg’s hard drive was later searched pursuant to a federal warrant. A forensic analysis of the hard drive revealed approximately 337 images and three videos of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct. At the times the images and videos were taken, the child was 5 and 6 years old.

Police obtained a warrant to search Oberg’s residence after receiving a complaint from the child’s mother, who was concerned about Oberg’s behavior toward the child.

“Oberg took advantage of his familiarity with the minor child to induce or coerce the child into engaging in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing the images and videos,” Boyce stated in a news release.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.

The case was investigated by the Smithton Police Department and United States Secret Service’s Cyber-Crime Unit.