Man from Missouri convicted of child pornography in 4 states

A man from Missouri is facing several years in prison for producing child pornography and engaging in child sexual assault. 

59-year-old Joseph Willard of central Missouri’s Cole Camp was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of 12 counts of sexually exploiting 7 children ranging in age from 8 to 17. 

Prosecutors say Willard pretended to run an international modeling agency with studios in New York, Milan, Italy, and other major cities, and traveled around the country in a conversion van. 

He used the van to get the children alone and would then take sexually explicit images of them and would sometimes sexually assault them. 

The pornographic images were produced in Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, and Missouri.