What started as a child-pornography bust in Lincoln County, Wyoming, ended with the rescue of nine children from sex trafficking in the Philippines, authorities say.
The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) agents who took down Afton resident Kelly Jasperson, 64, got to watch via virtual link this month as federal and local agents working in the Philippines entered the home and arrested a woman suspected of making her children have sex chats with Jasperson and others.
The woman was offering her four minor daughters for live-streaming sex acts, says a Feb. 14 statement by the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
On or about Feb. 6, the NBI learned the woman was again having her daughters live-stream sex acts and it launched an arrest and rescue operation, says the statement.
Agents arrested three people and rescued eight children, it adds.
The case at first resembled the unfortunately-common, "garden variety" child pornography cases investigated throughout Wyoming, Lincoln County Attorney Spencer Allred told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
But as investigators delved into the evidence, they learned of a “much more sinister, much deeper” indication — that the producers were offering repeated sex acts in real-time video streams, Allred said.
“We found (Jasperson) was communicating with a sex trafficking ring in the Philippines,” the prosecutor said. “There was direct contact: text messaging back and forth, video chat, and payment in exchange for those video chats.”
This involved thousands of dollars over a few-year span, Allred said.
DCI’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force worked the investigation, which had started with cyber tips from the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children (NCMEC). The tips, which NCMEC sent to ICAC in April and May 2024, indicated that Jasperson was using viewing and sharing child pornography material on Facebook, the case affidavit says.
DCI Special Agent Joel Greene confirmed that the video and image showed prepubescent children in sex acts, says the document.
Working through U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, Greene requested and received a federal summons for Jasperson’s IP address information.
The agent interviewed Jasperson May 16, 2024, and the latter admitted to accessing and distributing child pornography, says the document.
The affidavit says Special Agent Dan Allison searched Jasperson’s phone and found illegal materials as well.
Jasperson was sentenced Dec. 18, to between five and eight years in prison. Allred noted that he’d argued for a longer sentence.
The Feds
In July, the investigators shared their case file on Jasperson with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), DCI Commander Ryan Cox told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday interview.
Using those case materials, HSI worked with agencies in the Philippines to track down the mother suspected of trafficking her children, Cox and Allred both told the outlet.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a Wednesday email request for comment and confirmation.
The investigation “moved quickly” out of Wyoming into HSI Manila, said Cox. That’s an outpost based connected to the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, according to its website.
Meanwhile, DCI agents and Allred’s office focused on seeing Jasperson’s local case through the court system. The state agents didn’t hear updates from the federal government, Cox said.
Until earlier this month.
Allred said the federal government sent over an interesting email when its investigation hit the arrest-ready phase.
“So we get this email that says, ‘Hey, we’ve been doing this operation, we’ve had successful phone calls with the trafficking ring, we’re working on our search warrants and arrest warrants now,’” said Allred.
He said the email continued with something like, “We’re anticipating in the next week we’ll do a takedown — do you guys want to watch?”
Allred said absolutely.
He and about 10 ICAC agents joined a Zoom call with an undercover officer working alongside Homeland Security agents and the Philippines federal government. They watched in real-time as agents surrounded the home.
“We were able to watch as (the undercover agent) basically negotiated — as horrible as this sounds — a live sex chat with this woman and her children,” he added. The agent asked the woman to show him where all the kids were in the house, and she did, Allred recalled.
That was when agents stormed the place, gathered kids and arrested the mom, he said.
Then the video chat ended.
Allred said he’s since learned that the agents arrested the mother, her sister and her husband, plus another person trying to warn them about the agents, and that they rescued nine children ranging in age from 5 months to 16 years.
These numbers are slightly different from NBI’s account, which lists three people arrested and eight children saved.
Cox said his understanding is also that nine children were saved.
Allred called the case and its dramatic conclusion “a big deal for all of us.”
Between ICAC, Homeland Security and the other agencies it was a “very, very good operation,” Allred added.
Agents raided a house in the Phillipines and made a handful of arrests while rescuing eight or nine children who were being trafficked for live sex streaming over the internet. The case began with the arrest of Kelly Jasperson of Afton, Wyoming, on child pornography allegations. 
Agents raided a house in the Phillipines and made a handful of arrests while rescuing eight or nine children who were being trafficked for live sex streaming over the internet. The case began with the arrest of Kelly Jasperson of Afton, Wyoming, on child pornography allegations.
Finding The Victims
Child pornography cases can be frustrating because while it’s often common to find a consumer, it’s not always as easy to find the victims and rescue them, Allred noted.
In his nine years as county attorney, he’s not overseen a child pornography case that ended with a rescue before this one, Allred said.
But it does happen, Cox said.
ICAC received 1,108 child-sexual material cyber tips in 2024 and 817 in 2023, said the commander. Not all of those result in arrests, though ICAC and other Wyoming law enforcers will send the ones viable for prosecution into court, and file the rest away for use and reference on future cases, he said.
Of those, said Cox, just more-than a dozen per year result in pinning down a person actively producing that content, which equates to a rescue.
As for this case, Cox said he found it significant because it led to a bust on the other side of the world.
It’s not unusual for DCI to help other agencies throughout the United States, but to see its evidence yield a bust “literally halfway across the world” is “somewhat unusual,” said Cox.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
