Nikole Babb
nbabb@cherryroad.com
The Womochil, et al federal case has finally wound down to the last defendant as he was sentenced on Thursday afternoon at 1:30pm in the U.S. District Court located in Wichita.
Taylor M. Mullen, 30, of Council Grove, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for one count of conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child – production of child pornography. He will undergo 15 years of supervised release once he is released from prison and was ordered to pay $166,350 in restitution to his victim.
Court documents detail that in 2021, Mullen’s girlfriend, who was sentenced in October on the case, Jessica Quave, 38, digitally conspired with Joel Womochil, 39, to perform sexual exploitation on a prepubescent child. During the investigation, authorities found the child to be under Mullen’s care and custody and that he also was creating the content with Quave. The victim the two had control of was under six years old at the time of the crime. The content was being produced at their home in Council Grove.
Mullen was the fourth and last defendant to be sentenced in the case. Womochil pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child – production of child pornography. Last week he was sentenced to 720 months in prison while another defendant in the case, Denise Sandmann, 40, of Indiana, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit sexual exploitation of a child – production of child pornography and one count of sexual exploitation of a child – production of child pornography in crimes that took place in 2019. She received the same sentence as Womochil just hours after he was sentenced. Her victim was three years old at the time.
In a press release to the public, the U.S. District Attorney’s office wrote:
“We are grateful to the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Homeland Security Investigations for securing the overwhelming evidence against these child predators which led to guilty pleas and ultimately long prison sentences for their crimes,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Duston Slinkard.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gordon prosecuted the case. United States district judge John Broomes judged and sentenced each defendant. The Butler County Sheriff’s Office, Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated the case.
This case crosses state lines and is bigger and more horrific than a reader can imagine through this series of articles. Through the courtroom sentencings last week that the Times-Gazette was present for, it was found out that Womochil had over 6,000 individual victims counted through the content found on his electronic devices. While not all of them can be positively identified, 33 of them were able to be found and will receive restitution.
