A Petersburg man who formerly taught in Jacksonville was sentenced on Thursday in Springfield federal court to 60 years in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release for numerous crimes against children.
32-year old Adam L. Power received the sentence from Magistrate Judge Colleen Lawless after a nearly 4-month delay. Power pleaded guilty to 34 counts involving child exploitation, grooming, and distribution, possession, and receipt of child pornography.
Timeline of Events
Investigation into Power’s alleged inappropriate behavior began in 2018 after the Springfield Police Department and the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services that Power, a piano accompanist and volunteer director of community theater productions, made comments of a sexual nature to minors through the Snapchat mobile app and on other online platforms after he met them in theater productions. The 2018 investigation did not lead to any criminal charges, and DCFS determined the allegations to be unfounded, according to a report from the Illinois Times. Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright decided not to charge Power after the 2018 investigation. He told the newspaper: “Based on the investigation provided, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt, under the Illinois Criminal Code as written.” Parents told police at the time that they believed that Power was grooming children. Power was employed in 2018 at Our Savior Catholic School and Routt Catholic High School in Jacksonville at the time of the initial allegations. The Diocese of Springfield previously confirmed Power left employment at the schools in January 2019. No reason was given for the departure.
Power also served as choir director at Central Christian Church in Jacksonville as recently as November 2022. Power worked as a substitute teacher throughout the area from November 2019 to April 2021. The Illinois Times report also revealed that Power was removed from the all-volunteer board of Theatre in the Park in New Salem for alleged sexual harassment against a contractual adult employee on the nonprofit’s technical staff, according to Mark Wheeler, the organization’s part-time executive director.
On March 22, 2023 the Illinois State Police announced Power’s arrest on possession of child pornography charges. A State Police report says that on December 1, 2020 the Athens Police Department initiated an investigation after learning a subject was distributing child pornography through an online platform. During the investigation, an Athens Police Department Investigator assigned to the Office of the Illinois Attorney General Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at Power’s residence. The search warrant led to the discovery of additional evidence at Power’s residence. The Menard County State’s Attorney’s Office would initially charge Power with 8 counts of child pornography possession.
Power was eventually released on bond and placed on electronic monitoring. On June 30, 2023 Power was arrested by Department of Homeland Security Agents on a federal warrant after being indicted on a 10-country criminal information by a federal grand jury for producing, distributing, and receiving child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor. The Menard County case was dismissed with leave to reinstate on July 26, 2023 in deference to the federal grand jury indictment.
A superseding indictment on January 3, 2024 would ultimately account for the 34 charges brought against Power in the case. Power would remain on U.S. Marshal’s Hold at the Sangamon County Jail in lieu of his federal trial. On May 4, 2024, Power would plead guilty to all of the charges.
In November 2024, in handwritten communication to Judge Lawless, Power claimed ineffective counsel against his long-time attorney Daniel Fultz. Power claimed anxiety attacks, and a botched plea deal as to why he needed a new lawyer. Defense Attorney Mark Wykoff entered an appearance as the counsel on record for Power on November 26, 2024 and remained his attorney through his sentencing. After continuances in court in January, Judge Lawless handed down her sentencing on Thursday.
Sentencing Hearing
At the sentencing on Thursday, WCIA reports that Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner Jacobs established that Power used at least 13 online accounts on a number of platforms to portray himself as a teenage girl in order to persuade and entice, and attempt to persuade and entice, at least 24 boys between the ages of 8-16 to produce images of child pornography for him: “The defendant believed he was untouchable online, and that the mask he wore in public disguised the predator he was underneath. However, with tremendous cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement we were able to put a stop to another internet-based offender.” Power also used the images of a female victim in order to create the trust of his male victims. The government noted that he targeted not just strangers online but also victimized children he knew or had met before. They also said that Power, because he had distributed victim images, had placed the minors in situations where their images could now be anywhere across the world.
In his statement of allocution, Power is said to have called himself a perfectionist and a first-time offender with a lengthy resume of accomplishment in the Central Illinois community in an effort to ask for leniency from the court.
Judge Lawless, in imposing the sentence, said that Power used that perfectionism in order to be thoroughly heinous by creating the numerous accounts and using trickery and deceit while in a position of power and respect over numerous children. She said that he had been “methodical” in his approach to obtaining the child pornography from his victims. Lawless additionally found that Power’s use of his positions and accomplishments ultimately led to the loss of the victims’ privacy, security and trust.
Lawless said that by sentencing Power to 60 years on all of the charges, she was meeting neither the minimum or maximum prison length. She says the middle ground will likely let the sentence stand through any appeals process.