Adam Power avoided criminal charges for five years after Springfield police investigated him for alleged inappropriate online comments and text messages with minors he met in Springfield Theatre Centre programs and productions.
But since 2018, Power, a Petersburg resident and former Springfield-area substitute teacher, choir director and community theater director, used lies and more than a dozen online accounts in a relentless pursuit to persuade at least 24 boys – some of them from the area – to produce child pornography images and videos of themselves.
“This was a targeted attack on an entire community of children,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanner Jacobs said March 13 in Springfield’s U.S. District Court before Power, 32, was sentenced to 60 years in prison after pleading guilty to 34 counts of producing, receiving and possessing child pornography.
Even with good behavior, Power still would have to serve at least 87.5% of the sentence, or more than 52 years, and would be in his 80s when released.
Power pleaded guilty May 3, 2024. He said during that hearing that he was sorry for causing “an immense amount of pain. … I have caused unspeakable harm to so many people.”
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He added, “I’m extremely ashamed by my deplorable actions.”
Several people in the courtroom audience, which included families affected by Power’s behavior, sobbed during descriptions of Power’s actions and said they agreed with the prosecution’s request for a 100-year prison sentence.
“There is no other just punishment,” Jacobs said.
Power was initially arrested in March 2023 and charged in Menard County Circuit Court but has been in federal custody since June 2023 after federal prosecutors took over the case.
Power asked District Judge Colleen Lawless for leniency – a sentence of 15 years – because of his potential for rehabilitation.
Power, a 2012 graduate of Petersburg PORTA High School, noted that he earned an online bachelor’s degree in music from Judson College in Marion, Alabama.
“I have dedicated my life to the service of others,” said Power, who wore a striped jail jumpsuit, spoke calmly and showed little emotion during the hearing.
“I have a strong work ethic,” Power told the judge. “I was a perfectionist.”
Power said he was bullied for much of his childhood because of his weight and lack of athleticism, and was traumatized by frequent digital rectal examinations for a medical condition when he was 10 or 11. He said he attempted suicide with pain medication in 2019.
Power said his acting out online helped him deal with depression.
“I could pretend to be someone I wasn’t,” he said. “I knew it was wrong … but I couldn’t quit.”
Power’s attorney, Mark Wykoff of Springfield, told the judge, “The bullied became the bully himself.”
The judge wasn’t persuaded.
“There is no doubt that this is certainly a heinous crime,” Lawless said.
She told Power that he harnessed his perfectionism and work ethic, along with nine different electronic devices, including iPads and iPhones, to “prey on kids you know and taught.
“It’s hard for me to consider that redeeming,” Lawless said.
Power’s lawyer noted that there was no physical contact between Power and his victims. However, the judge told Power, “Trust was abused here. You were methodical.”
Based on enhancements involving the use of electronic devices in the child porn crimes, Jacobs said federal sentencing guidelines justified a sentence of up to 740 years.
Jacobs said Power destroyed the innocence of boys whose ages ranged from 8 to 16. Power used words and photos online to portray himself as a female to get the boys to trust him, he said. Power told the boys how to position themselves in images and what to say, asking them to moan and masturbate, Jacobs said.
“It was overwhelmingly clear that he enjoyed manipulating young boys into surrendering their most innocent moments,” Jacobs said.
By sharing many of the images he received from his victims online, Power ensured that those images could be available on the internet for years to come, Jacobs said.
“It is clear that these families still hurt today,” Jacobs said. “He took from these children their sense of security.”
Jacobs read a letter from one victim’s mother who said Powers was “the monster who stole from my family. One hundred years isn’t enough.”
Power previously was employed at Our Savior Catholic School and Routt Catholic School, both in Jacksonville, and worked as a substitute teacher at PORTA. He was a choir director at Central Christian Church in Jacksonville and worked at Nelson Oil.
Kari Bedford of Springfield and her ex-husband, Johnny Molson of Chicago, complained publicly in 2023 that Bill Bauser Jr., a former member of the board of Springfield Municipal Opera, didn’t do enough in 2018 and 2019 to protect children from inappropriate online and text messages from Power.
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Bauser later resigned and was fired from his job as Rochester Community Unit School District 3A’s auditorium and fine arts director for allegedly making “sexually suggestive” comments to Rochester High students. Bauser never was charged with any crimes.
Bedford and Molson said their daughter, now in her 20s, received inappropriate messages from Power when she was a minor. Their daughter’s experience was part of the 2018 investigation by Springfield police and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, but she wasn’t one of the victims in the federal case.
Bedford and Molson were frustrated that Power had supporters and defenders in the local performing arts community who doubted or minimized allegations about him. Both attended the March 13 federal court hearing and later said they were gratified by the outcome.
“Many victims are still unaccounted for,” Bedford said. “We may never know the full extent of Adam’s crimes. However, the submission of a guilty plea and an appropriately lengthy sentence is the best we can hope for – and quite frankly, it is the kind of justice that most victims and families rarely ever see.
“Going forward, it is our wish that the bravery of the children involved, and the outcome of this case, is contagious enough to lend courage to other victims in their own quest for justice,” she said.
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Molson said the judge was “swift and firm in her sentencing.”
He said Power’s and Wykoff’s statements were “riddled with inaccuracies and so pathetic that they’d be comical were they not so serious.”
Molson said the case “underscores how crucial it is to listen to children and believe them. It can’t be swept under the rug and hope it goes away. Pedophiles thrive in the shadows. Bringing it in the open is the only way to fight it.”
This article appears in Spring Guide 2025.
A chapter ended in an almost decade fight for justice for the victims. When a child tells you they are being abused, belive them, don’t say are you sure, or maybe you are mistaken. Springfield PD, you let your community down. Athens PD, an entire generation of children and the regional community thanks you.
Soliciting porn from children is not “acting out.” That is how you know there is no “rehabilitation” here, he needs to be in prison for life.
Send him to CECOT prison in El Salvador it is cheaper for us tax payers thank keeping him here.