1 Tip Leads to 17 Years in Federal Prison for a Missouri Villain

If you think there's nothing you can do to truly make a difference, consider this. One anonymous tip has resulted in a Missouri man being sentenced to 17 years in a federal prison all because one person was brave enough to speak up.

The FBI in St. Louis, Missouri shared details of what just happened as the result of one person submitting a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The FBI in St. Louis shared a press release providing even more details of what happened and how this Missouri man was caught. Patrick Mayberry, now 46, of High Ridge, Missouri divulged that he had been paid more than $2,000 for child pornography that he obtained on what he called "the dark web". Investigators also found awful child abuse videos in one of his online cloud accounts. He was a registered sex offender at the time of his new crimes. Here are his convictions as shared by the FBI:

• convicted of one count of failure to register as a sex offender in 2021
• convicted of one count of attempting to procure child pornography for seeking nude photographs of a nine-year-old in 2008
• convicted of second-degree rape of a victim under age 16 in 2003

Because one person was willing to speak up and let authorities know what this man was doing, he will be in federal prison for 17 years. You just never know when something you know might help save others from suffering at the hands of guilty individuals like this.