The Henry County Circuit Court has sentenced Derek Brett Roberts, 44 of Clinton, to twenty-three life sentences for eight counts of sexual trafficking of a child in the first degree, four counts of rape in the first degree, and eleven counts of sodomy in the first degree.
The charges stem from an online investigation conducted by the Division of Drug and Crime Control of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which then led investigators to execute multiple search warrants of the home and devices of Roberts.
Highway Patrol investigators, through analysis of Roberts’s phone, found multiple files containing what appeared to be photographs and videos of graphic child pornography, including numerous videos that appeared to have been created by the defendant in his home with children under the age of nine.
In June a jury found Roberts guilty of all twenty-three counts. On October 11, 2024, Circuit Judge M. Brandon Baker held a sentencing hearing. Henry County Prosecutor LaChrisha Gray prosecuted the case and requested the Court sentence the defendant to life on each count as required by law and run the sentences consecutive.
Each sexual trafficking of a child conviction is punishable by a term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole until the defendant has served twenty-five years in prison. Because the victims were under the age of twelve, each of the rape and sodomy in the first-degree convictions are punishable by life imprisonment without the possibility of parole until the defendant has served thirty years of such sentence.
The Court after considering the evidence and arguments, sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment on each count and ordered the sentences to run consecutive. Therefore, the Court’s sentence of the defendant requires that the defendant serve six hundred and fifty (650) years before being eligible for parole.
