Welcome to our new web site!

To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.

During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.

Rocheport couple faces decades in prison after pleading guilty to child sex, drug crimes

Federal child pornography charges still pending

Justin Addison, Editor/Publisher
Posted 1/28/25

A Rocheport couple will spend decades in prison after pleading guilty on Friday in Howard County Court to more than a dozen charges ranging from drug possession in the presence of minors to the …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Rocheport couple faces decades in prison after pleading guilty to child sex, drug crimes

Federal child pornography charges still pending

Posted

A Rocheport couple will spend decades in prison after pleading guilty on Friday in Howard County Court to more than a dozen charges ranging from drug possession in the presence of minors to the repeated drugging and rape of a teenage relative while in their custody.

Jeremy James Cudney, 35, and Cassandra Elaine Cudney, 34, face sentences of 70 and 21 years,  respectively, in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Both also face federal charges regarding child pornography. Those cases are still pending in federal court.

Mr. and Mrs. Cudney were scheduled to go to trial on the state charges in February. Howard County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Riekhof told the Fayette Advertiser that a plea agreement had been reached with Cassandra Cudney prior to Friday’s scheduled pre-trial hearings. Late on Thursday afternoon, Jeremy Cudney had also agreed to plead guilty.

Mrs. Riekhof said she was satisfied with the plea agreements. Not only do both persons face lengthy prison sentences, but the pleadings also spare the victim—only 14 at the time the crimes began—from publicly testifying during a lengthy trial.

Mr. Cudney appeared before Judge Terry Alan Tschannen, assigned to the case from the Ninth Circuit, with his attorney, public defender Stephen McKinley Concannon, in Howard County Court on Friday morning. He wore leg chains and handcuffs in his jail-issued orange jumpsuit. He pleaded guilty to 10 counts, four of which involved drug-related charges—possession of methamphetamine in the presence of three young children—for which he received sentences of seven years apiece, along with a mix of 10- and 15-year sentences for five counts of first-degree rape and sodomy charges. He must serve a minimum of 85% percent of those sentences. In addition, he received a maximum $500 fine for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Mr. Cudney’s attorney, Mr. Concannon, asked the judge to change the penalty of a fine to that of time served since his client will not have many opportunities to earn money in prison. The judge denied the request outright.

Mrs. Cudney pleaded guilty to 10 counts on Friday. Like her husband, the first three counts reagarded  drug charges, having methamphetamine in the home with three minor children. 

Appearing with her attorney, public defender Aaron Rowley, she also pleaded guilty to three charges of child endangerment, admitting to knowing her husband was repeatedly raping and drugging her teenage niece and failing to intervene.

Under the plea agreement, Mrs. Cudney will be sentenced to seven years each for the three drug convictions, which will all run consecutively, and 10 years each for the charges of endangering the welfare of a child while continuing to allow her husband to have contact with the victim. Those sentences will run consecutively to one another and concurrently with the three seven-year sentences, amounting to 21 years behind bars. She also received a maximum fine of $500 for possession of drug paraphernalia. 

However, Judge Tschannen granted a request by Mrs. Cudney’s attorney to delay the sentencing until the federal proceedings play out. This prevents her from “bouncing around to several institutions,” Mr. Rowley explained.

With no objection from Assistant Attorney General Tristin Estep, the judge agreed to delay sentencing until April 22 at 9 a.m. However, he issued a no-bond hold while she is not remanded to federal confinement to prevent her from leaving custody. “She’s not going anywhere,” the judge said.

During the plea hearings, Mrs. Estep read aloud shocking details of the crimes that began on August 25, 2019, and continued until August 30, 2021, when the state removed the victim from the couple’s home in rural Rocheport. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cudney admitted to the facts that were read aloud.

While both face years in prison, Friday’s plea deals are not the end of Mr. and Mrs. Cudney’s legal troubles in this case. The couple still faces federal charges involving the production and dissemination of child pornography. A federal grand jury indicted both in October 2024, charging Mr. Cudney with one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Mrs. Cudney is charged federally with one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Both face additional prison time if convicted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa A. Pierce and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley S. Turner are prosecuting the federal case. It was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, Missouri State Technical Assistance Team (STAT), and the Howard County Sheriff’s Department. The federal proceedings will play out in federal court in Jefferson City. 

The Cudneys were arrested on April 25, 2022, and ordered to be held without bond, charged with rape and child endangerment.

Mr. Cudney was initially charged with four counts of first-degree rape; several counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, three of which involved drugs; first-degree sodomy; eight charges of possession of child pornography; and three charges involving drugs and drug paraphernalia. Since his arrest, he had been held without bond in the Howard County Jail.

Mrs. Cudney initially faced 21 state charges, including five counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, three of which involved drugs in the presence of children aged four, 10, and 14, and two involving sexual contact; four counts of first-degree rape; one count of sodomy; eight charges of possession of child pornography; one charge of drug possession; and two charges of possession of drug paraphernalia. She had been held without bond in Randolph County.

Mrs. Cudney allegedly admitted her culpability in several of the charges, according to a motion to sever filed in February 2024 by public defender Robert Fleming, her previous attorney.

According to a probable cause statement filed by the STAT on April 25, 2022, the teenage victim told officers that starting in August 2021, she had been raped by Jeremy Cudney, her uncle, on several occasions when Cassandra was away from the house. She was often tied up with ropes and at least once was forced to drink water containing a muscle relaxer. The facts read in court on Friday stated that once, he cut off the victim’s clothes with a knife before forcing himself upon her.

When officers searched the locations where the alleged crimes took place, near the intersection of Highway 40 and County Road 433 in southern Howard County, they found ropes attached to the bedroom ceilings and walls, along with cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxer.

The court sealed a probable cause statement for Cassandra Cudney before this newspaper could learn any further details.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here