Bayard man gets more than two decades in prison for child pornography charges

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — A western Nebraska man was sentenced to decades in prison on Thursday after he was convicted on multiple child pornography charges.

Robert Crable  Jr., 60, of Bayard, Nebraska, got 22 years and 10 months in a federal prison for one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

After Crable is released from prison, he will serve a 7-year term of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $15,000, which will go toward funds established for victims of such crimes.

This all started when the Department of Homeland Security arrested four people in the Philippines who were engaged in human trafficking of minors.

Each of those four individuals was found to have recorded child sexual abuse material of children in their care and to have sold those files to paying customers worldwide.

Additionally, these four people would offer “shows” in which the children would engage in sexually explicit acts in livestream or video chats for paying customers.

During a review of the four traffickers’ accounts, Crable’s account was found to be communicating with them as a customer.

A search warrant for Crable’s account found around 2,000 files of child sexual abuse content saved on the account.

The search also revealed tens of thousands of messages between the traffickers and Crable between February 2022 and March 2025.

The conversations included numerous instances of Crable directing livestreams or video chats in which a child was being sexually abused.

Crable’s financial records also showed payments overseas and were consistent with these conversations and the purchase of child sexual abuse content.

“For years, this defendant and those he conspired with caused irreparable harm to the victims in this case. The diligence of the HSI case agents proves perpetrators of these repulsive crimes cannot hide and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods.

“Robert Crable committed horrific crimes that inflicted unconscionable trauma on children,” said HSI Nebraska Resident Agent in Charge Shane M. Gosnell. “I am extremely proud of our agents’ diligent work in putting him behind bars, preventing other children from being abused. HSI works hard every day to find individuals like this who have no moral compass and exploit the weak and vulnerable who are unable to defend themselves.”