St. Cloud Man Sentenced for Possessing Child Sexual Abuse Images

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A St. Cloud man who pleaded guilty to possessing pornographic work involving a child under 14 has been sentenced.

A Stearns County judge has sentenced 75-year-old Joseph Scott Smith to a two-year stayed sentence. He was also sentenced to 180 days in the county jail with four days of credit.

According to the charges filed in Stearns County District Court, investigators with the St. Cloud Police Department received an Internet Crimes Against Children Cyber Tip from Microsoft in December 2022. Microsoft detected two photographs of a young girl being sexually assaulted.

The internet address was tracked to a residence in the 1500 block of 6th Avenue South in St. Cloud.

Additional tips of child sexual abuse images at that IP address were sent in April 2023 and September 2024. In November 2024, authorities used a search warrant to confiscate several electronic devices from Smith.

In February 2025, the FBI sent the investigators a copy of Smith's hard drive. In August 2025, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent the investigators reports on the 468 images of child sexual abuse material found on Smith's hard drive. Many of the images were of girls between the ages of three and five years old, but also included an infant child, a boy between the ages of two and three, and two videos involving bestiality.

Smith pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing pornographic material involving a child under 14 back in May. He'll be on probation for 10 years.