Bastrop predator caught with help from Project Safe Childhood

BASTROP COUNTY, Texas - A Bastrop man is in federal prison for sexual exploitation of a child. The case was brought as part of a national project aimed at protecting children and prosecuting predators.

"We're coming. We're going to find you," Project Safe Childhood Coordinator for Western District of Texas Tracy Thompson said.

In August 2023, a Bastrop man was found with images and videos depicting child sexual abuse on his phone. Court documents said 41-year-old Stuart Mitchell Pieper was on a social networking app posting multiple images depicting the sexual abuse of children and discussing how he was grooming female children for sexual activity. He pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor. 

In July 2024, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

"Every day there are new victims that are abused and exploited online," Thompson said.

Thompson said Project Safe Childhood works to identify and rescue victims.

"The goal is to protect children," Thompson said.

This national initiative started in 2006 and uses local, state, and federal resources to locate, arrest, and prosecute people.

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"They become very, very creative in how they get access to children and a lot of times it's in ways that parents would never guess that they couldn't fathom that that's how their child got contacted by somebody online," Thompson said.

She said a lot of the time it’s through social media accounts.

"Law enforcement has done a tremendous job staying on top of the technology and infiltrating these groups that they think are completely anonymous and finding these people and apprehending them, but it's hard because everybody has a digital device, little kids have digital devices, schools give out devices. There's just no way to avoid being on the internet," Thompson said.

Thompson said to help protect children, parents should encourage life experiences without technology.

"If you communicate with your children and spend time with your children and establish that relationship, that helps, know what they're doing, don't let them live online. They can be online for certain things, but don't let that be their world," Thompson said.