BENTON - A Fairview Heights man is heading to federal prison for possession of child pornography. Michael M. Rapa, 68 of Fairview Heights, was sentenced on Thursday, June 2, 2022, to 6 years in prison for two counts of possession of prepubescent child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. Rapa pleaded guilty to the charges in February. Following his prison sentence, Rapa will be on federal supervised release for 5 years and will be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life. According to court documents, Rapa first came to the attention of law enforcement in Vancouver, Canada, in 2015. As the result of a subsequent investigation conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Fairview Heights Police Department, in 2017 Rapa was determined to be in possession of hundreds of image and video files containing prepubescent child pornography on various items of electronic media which lead to charges in the Southern District o
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