Kenneth Dale Ooten, 39, of Varney, was charged in November with the three counts. He is accused of sending photos of child pornography to an undercover cop he allegedly believed to be a young boy.
Ooten’s arraignment was held Monday in Adair County, Mo., circuit court and Adair County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Williams said Ooten entered a not guilty plea and a trial date will be set on January 22, 2008.
Ooten is currently lodged in the Adair County Detention Center. He was extradited from the Southwestern Regional Jail at Holden.
Ooten turned himself in to the West Virginia State Police after warrants for his arrest as a fugitive from justice were issued by the Adair County prosecutor.
He faces up to 15 years in prison on each of the counts.
However, Williams said the FBI now have the computers that were confiscated from Ooten’s Varney residence and will be processing those to see if additional federal charges will be added. Williams said police there have been processing one mainframe computer terminal, two external hard drives and several floppy disks which were all confiscated earlier this year.
“His case was continued to January 22 at 9 a.m. for a trial-setting date,” Williams said. “Most of the stuff has been turned over to the FBI. I confirmed that with the U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis and they are going to start reviewing the case after the first of the year. Because of all the things they can throw on people, a lot of times they end up taking the case over completely. So, there is a possibility that my file would be turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
Williams said he could not comment on the number of images that may have been discovered on the computer and hard drives.
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