KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Kansas City man pleaded no contest Wednesday to 21 federal charges accusing him of lacing ice cream and soda with sleeping pills, giving them to young girls and making pornographic videos of them.
James Phillip Edwards, 61, could spend the rest of his life in prison. U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple entered a judgment of guilty on all the counts against him.
Prosecutors said Edwards admitted giving 13 girls ages 6 to 13 years old Ambien and other sedatives between July 2001 and June 2005 and creating multiple videos of him molesting them.
Edwards was found guilty of 12 counts of producing child pornography, one count of attempting to produce child porn and five counts of giving the victims a controlled substance without their knowledge to facilitate a crime of violence. He also was found guilty of one count each of advertising child pornography over the Internet, attempting to distribute child porn over the Internet and possessing child porn.
Edwards was caught after sting operations by two separate agencies in 2009 led investigators to seize his computer, on which a forensic examiner determined Edwards had downloaded child porn using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program.
It was during that time that investigators found a file called "Consuming the Date Rape Drug," which began with an explanation that "the girls would be given a date rape drug in soda and separately with ice cream."