DES MOINES, Iowa – A Fort Dodge man was sentenced today (Thursday) to 20 years in federal prison for attempted enticement of a minor. The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa says, according to public court documents, 38-year-old Mitchell Keith Russell initiated a Facebook chat with a person that Russell believed was a 13-year-old Altoona female. For over three weeks in March 2024, Russell engaged the minor in sexually explicit discussion.

Russell repeatedly requested the minor create and send him sexually explicit photos of herself and sent the minor sexually obscene videos. Ultimately, Russell arranged to meet the minor at an Altoona motel to engage in sex acts on March 26. When Russell arrived at the motel, he was arrested by the Altoona detective who had been posing as the 13-year-old Facebook user.

Russell committed this crime while he was a registered sex offender and on state parole. Russell was convicted in 2015 of sexual abuse in the Iowa District Court for Humboldt County, for engaging in a sex act with a 15-year-old minor; Russell was in his late 20s when he abused that minor. Russell was required to register as a sex offender as a result of that conviction.

After completing his term of imprisonment, Russell will be required to serve a seven-year term of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. This case was investigated by the Altoona Police Department.

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 the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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 https://www.justice.gov/psc. For information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the resources tab.