Former Maryland Heights Police Officer Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

The following press release was issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge John A. Ross on Tuesday sentenced a former Maryland Heights police officer who requested nude pictures from an undercover law enforcement officer to four years in prison.

Gregory Ortlip, 57, of O’Fallon, Missouri, pleaded guilty July 27 to one count of attempted possession of child pornography and admitted communicating online with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. During the conversations, Ortlip brought up sex and requested nude pictures from the girl. He also offered to send her pictures of his genitals.

The girl was really an undercover law enforcement officer involved in a Kentucky Internet Crimes Against Children investigation.

Ortlip also admitted that in 2020, he communicated with a 15-year-old Kansas girl and requested and received pictures of her breasts. The girl told Ortlip she was 16.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office - Department of Criminal Investigations and the Overland Park (Kansas) Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.