Former Springfield bus driver receives 17-year sentence for sex crime

A former bus driver in Springfield was sentenced last week in federal court for taking sexually explicit photos of a young child and sharing the images in an internet chat group.

Gordon Wesley Roughton II, 42, of Springfield, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool to 17 years in federal prison without parole, according to a news release from the office of Teresa Moore, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Roughton in September 2022 pleaded guilty to the sexual exploitation of a minor. At the time of his arrest, Roughton was employed as a seasonal bus driver for a children’s program for the Springfield-Greene County Park Board, a position he had held every summer from 2014-19, according to the release. Roughton also had been employed as a substitute teacher at schools in the Springfield area, and previously worked as a bus driver for Springfield Public Schools and a Springfield Catholic school.

The criminal investigation began on June 15, 2021, when a detective with the Springfield Police Department received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. MeWe, a social media and social networking service, had discovered images of child pornography uploaded by Roughton, according to the release.

Law enforcement executed a search warrant at Roughton’s residence the next day. Roughton admitted he had participated in a chat group on MeWe where the group members traded child pornography, prosecutors say. He said he took photos of the child victim to trade in the chat group and uploaded the images to MeWe.