St. Ignatius child predator sentenced to federal prison

A St. Ignatius man with a decades-long history of child sex crimes has been sentenced to federal prison for his latest offenses.

According to acting U.S. Attorney Leif M. Johnson, Justin Douglas Lampke, 47, was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in federal prison for transporting child pornography and for failure to register as a sex offender.

Lampke, who is currently jailed in the Missoula County Detention Center, also will be on probation for 15 years.

Court documents filed by the government indicated Lampke has several prior sexual abuse convictions beginning in 1992 in the state of Oregon where his victims were as young as 5 and 6 years old.

According to 2017 media accounts in Oregon, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office sought Lampke after he failed to return to his home in Bend. Later it was discovered he had moved to Montana.

Lampke is on lifetime post-prison supervision as a Level III sex offender, with past convictions for sexual abuse and attempted sodomy.

While on probation for those convictions, Lampke violated his parole on several occasions. In January 2020, Lampke was caught hiding in Montana under an alias. He was discovered when an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force detective received multiple National Center for Missing and Exploited Children cybertips regarding an individual transferring child pornography files via Facebook.

Lampke’s real identity was discovered, and he was arrested for the underlying crimes. Child pornography was located on multiple devices seized from his residence, and agents determined Lampke transported or moved child pornography to a USB storage device from another digital device in May 2019.

U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy ordered $3,000 restitution on the child pornography crime and forfeiture of electronic devices seized in the case. Lampke pleaded guilty in October 2020 to failure to register as a sex offender and in March 2021 to transporting child pornography.