Mankato Man Charged with 7 Felony Counts of Possessing Pornographic Work Involving a Minor

A Mankato Man was charged Thursday in Blue Earth County District Court with 7 counts of Possessing Pornographic work involving a Minor. Each charge faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison or $10,000 fine, or both.

According to the criminal complaint:

“On January 9, 2024, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“NCMEC”) received a Cyber Tipline report from an Electronic Service Provider Business relating to 18 files uploaded to cloud storage associated with a phone belonging to Clint Tienter of Mankato. In its own report, NCMEC categorized 17 of the uploaded files as images depicting a prepubescent minor engaged in a sex act and one of the files as an image depicting a prepubescent minor engaged in lascivious exhibition. NCMEC forwarded the CyberTip to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (“BCA”), and the CyberTip was assigned to Mankato Department of Public Safety.

At 5:00 p.m. on December 10, 2024, officers from the Mankato Department of Public Safety executed a search warrant in Blue Earth County. Upon approaching the property on North Mozart Avenue, Tienter was observed walking in the yard and advised by officers he was going to be detained. Law enforcement located various electronic devices including a cell phone that was associated with Tienter’s previously mentioned phone number, phone documents, several computers, a tablet, and an external drive. On December 11, 2024, Tienter was interviewed at Blue Earth County Jail. During the interview, Tienter admitted to paying other users on the Honeycam video chat application to see their juvenile children engage in sexual acts. Tienter also admitted to receiving videos with similar content over the Telegram application.”

Tienter was ordered to be detained pending further proceedings. The investigation is ongoing.