United States Attorney
United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Clifton D. Reinoehl, 44, of Sheridan, Wyoming, was sentenced April 22, 2024, in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska for production and possession of child pornography. Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard sentenced Reinoehl to a total of 264 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Reinoehl’s release from prison, he will begin a 15-year term of supervised release and be required to register as a sex offender. Reinoehl was also ordered to pay $54,000 to the victims.
In February of 2023, the manager of a hotel in Schuyler, Nebraska called law enforcement to report a suspicious male guest who was seen with a very young girl. The two had left the hotel together. While law enforcement was speaking with hotel staff on scene, the male returned and was identified as Clifton Reinoehl from Sheridan, Wyoming. Reinoehl advised he had rented a vehicle and driven to Schuyler to meet an “online friend” he identified as an underage girl. Reinoehl confirmed he knew that the victim was a minor from their online conversations and further confirmed his knowledge of her age by relating to law enforcement various facts about the victim, including her birthdate.
Reinoehl was taken to the police department and interviewed. He advised his phone would have child pornography on it and signed a written consent to have his phone searched. When his property was inventoried in preparation for jail, a SD card was located that he advised would also have child pornography images. Reinoehl also advised he had a laptop at his residence in Wyoming would contain additional images of child pornography. Officers with the Schuyler Police Department were able to work with their counterparts in Sheridan, Wyoming to secure a search warrant for the laptop Reinoehl identified. That computer contained 2,689 child pornography files and another 14,278 that were classified as child erotica. Further investigation revealed that Reinoehl would actively communicate with children online and manipulate and groom them to send him sexually explicit images of themselves to him.
In pronouncing his sentence, Senior Judge Gerrard commended the bravery and courage of the victim for coming forward and for cooperating with law enforcement. He also noted Reinoehl appeared to have a “significant lack of insight into the damage” he had inflicted on multiple children.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
This case was investigated by the Schuyler Police Department, Sheridan, Wyoming Police Department the Nebraska State Patrol, and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office gives special thanks to the victim in this case for stepping forward to protect other children, for her family for supporting her, and to Sgt. Ryan Andel with the Schuyler Police Department and Juana Hanson with the Colfax County Attorney’s Office for their assistance with the case.