Buckley facing minimum of 10 years in prison
A sordid, whirlwind courtship with a 16-year-old Missouri girl that went from a chatroom to a hotel room three nights later landed a former Jasper County businessman and community leader in a courtroom, and now he is facing at least 10 years in federal prison.
Zachary Wes Buckley, 49, of Stringer — the former publisher of The Impact and The Jasper County News — pleaded guilty to one count of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. He made the plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps Jr. in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri’s Central Division, admitting that he traveled to Columbia, Mo., and had sex with the girl.
A sentencing date has not been set, but Buckley faces a sentence of up to life in prison and a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison.
The investigation was launched in late March after the girl sent an email to the Boone County (Mo.) Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crimes Task Force that introduced herself as “Minor Victim” from Boone County. “I have a chat that I feel like I need to report,” she wrote, adding, “I don’t want to be involved in any possible investigation. I haven’t told my family and I don’t want them to know.”
The girl, who was 17 at the time she sent the email, was 16 when she “started talking to a guy online” and “had sexual conversations with him,” she wrote. “A lot of our interactions were on video calls.”
She told investigators that she knew the man was in his 40s and he knew she was 16 and she let them know that she could provide them with his phone number and the name she saw on his GPS in the car when he took her to the hotel.
“I can send any screenshots of the conversations needed,” she wrote. “I really don’t want anyone in my life to know about this, I’ll probably say that a thousand times over. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done. But if there is, thank you.”
A task force detective then contacted the girl and got consent from her mother to access the online account. Their conversations started on ChatIW then moved to Google Chat on Jan. 27. Buckley was communicating under the name “Wes” and his Google username was “Dub Ya.”
The detective noted, “Throughout the course of their conversations, Dub Ya acknowledged MV was 16 years old.”
Buckley and the teen “masturbated on videocam” then made plans to meet for sex, according to the detective’s affidavit. MV told him she would “sneak out” of her house around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 30 and “meet at Cherry Hill Park.” That’s where Buckley picked her up and took her to the TownPlace Suites, where they had sexual intercourse.
The detective tracked down Buckley through the hotel registration and got surveillance footage of him “holding the hand of a minor matching the description of MV walking up a set of stairs together inside the hotel at approximately 9:56 p.m,” according to the report.
The mounting evidence as his Dec. 4 trial date neared evidently led Buckley to plead guilty to one of three charges he was facing at the time of his arrest in April. Task force investigators came to Buckley’s home in Stringer on April 20 to arrest him, but he was in Louisiana at the time and was detained by state police there near Shreveport. When he was arrested in Bossier Parish, La. before being extradited to Columbia, he was charged with knowingly enticing a minor, attempting to produce child pornography and transfer of obscene material. He pleaded not guilty in his initial appearance in May.
The arrest of Buckley shocked many in the community who knew him as a third-generation businessman and community leader who had been active in church and civic organizations. He often covered local school and youth sporting events, shooting photos and writing stories. His name was quickly scrubbed from the list of leaders at his publications and other organizations he was associated with.
Some people who know him well, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told stories about his generosity and “quick to help” spirit after local disasters and with individuals in need. They said the charges were taking a toll on his family — his school-age children, in particular — and asked that people of faith keep them in prayer.
Buckley was denied bond by the judge because he “poses a risk” to the community and because he has nowhere to go, the judge ruled shortly after his arrest, noting that Buckley’s wife and three teenage children “are traumatized by the reported allegations and are not comfortable with Mr. Buckley residing with or near them.”
Under federal statutes, Buckley is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison without parole and up to a sentence of life in federal prison without parole. Buckley’s punishment will be determined by the court based on sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors, according to a press release from the prosecutor’s office. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley S. Turner. It was investigated by the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department. Buckley’s attorney is Assistant Federal Public Defender Troy Stabenow.
This case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.
For more about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more about Internet safety education, visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”
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