KANSAS CITY, Kan. — An Overland Park man pleaded guilty Monday to distributing child pornography on the Internet while posing as a 46-year-old woman.
Frank Kurtz, 70, pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography. In his plea, he admitted that an investigation by the Israeli National Police first identified emails in which Kurtz used the alias “Lisayearning46” to send child pornography to another person. The FBI in Kansas followed an electronic trail to Kurtz, who registered with Yahoo under the name “Lisa Lewis” and used photos he found on the Internet as his profile picture.
Kurtz is scheduled for sentencing July 10. Both parties have agreed to recommend a sentence of 97 months in federal prison.
Kurtz’s neighbors on Westgate Street in Lenexa were shocked when Kurtz was arrested, telling FOX 4 they never would’ve suspected Kurtz would be accused in a child porn investigation.
“I can’t believe it,” said Robert Arnold, who lives across the street. “And that something like that is happening in our neighborhood and the guy, as old as he is, it just doesn`t make sense.”
Other neighbors, who declined an on-camera interview, told FOX 4 they didn’t believe the accusations, saying Kurtz was “innocent until proven guilty.”
“I just hope and pray that it’s not true, for his sake and for our sake here,” Arnold said.
However, Arnold remembered two years ago when he saw law enforcement officers pay a visit to Kurtz’s home.
“There were about six-to-eight cars of FBI agents,” he said, “and I think two police cars. And they were going in and out of the house and it looked like they were carrying something out and it looked to me like a computer.”
That timeline matches up with the dates listed on Kurtz’s Grand Jury indictment documents.
U.S. Attorney Tom Beall commended the FBI, the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Flannigan for their work on the case.
