Mom said to offer girl, 16, for porn, sex

A Searcy woman put her teenage daughter up for child pornography in exchange for two morphine pills, the woman’s co-defendant testified Wednesday.

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Don Ray Harris, 59, and Shannon Adams, 43, were indicted by a federal grand jury in 2012 on charges of producing child pornography. At the time, Harris was also facing a possession of child pornography charge.

After further investigation, authorities tacked on two more federal charges against Harris: sex trafficking of a minor and felon in possession of a firearm - he had been convicted on three drug charges. But on Feb. 24, Harris pleaded guilty to just the child pornography possession charge and had the other three charges dropped in exchange for testifying in Adams’ trial, which started Wednesday.

Harris hasn’t yet been sentenced.

Adams is accused of encouraging Harris to take two nude photographs of her daughter, who was 16 at the time, and knowingly taking her daughter to “engage in a commercial sex act,” prosecutors said. Adams had pulled her daughter out of school on Oct. 31, 2011, for that very purpose, prosecutors allege.

Adams’ attorney, Mark Jesse, contended that Harris, who has admitted fondling and performing oral sex on the girl, has told authorities different tales about what happened that day. Jesse called into question Harris’ testimony and motives for testifying, saying the government gave “such a generous” gift to the man by allowing him to plead guilty to one of the four charges and continue receiving his benefits from the Veterans Affairs Department.

During the first day of the trial before U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson, Harris - who appeared in an orange Pulaski County jail uniform and in his wheelchair - recounted the Halloween when Adams and her daughter went to his Heber Springs home.

The U.S. Army veteran said he received 120 morphine pills a month from the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock for about 25 years. He had been in a construction accident that left him disabled some 30 years ago.

Harris said that a woman took Adams to his home one day and that he and Adams smoked marijuana a couple times. He began selling her morphine, he said.

“She’d come in and she might want one or two,” he testified. “Never more than that.”

That Oct. 31, Harris testified he was still in bed when he saw Adams drive up to his home and start calling him. Adams banged on every door and window, he said, and yelled from outside that she could hear his phone ringing.

Harris either called her back later or picked up one of her calls, lying to her and telling her that he hit a deer in his truck and was getting the pickup repaired, he said, adding that he told her to come back in an hour. At that point, Adams told him that her daughter wanted to show him her breasts so Adams could have two morphine pills, he testified.

“I never agreed to give no morphine for nothing,” he said.

When Adams and the daughter returned to his home later that day, they went straight to his bedroom, where the daughter took off her clothes and lay in his bed, Harris testified. After admitting to fondling the daughter and performing the sex act, Harris told jurors that Adams said her daughter needed “to get experience posing for Playboy” and picked up his phone to take a picture of her naked daughter.

“It was her idea,” he said.

He took two pictures on a Kodak camera, which investigators later seized after securing a search warrant for his home. Adams then asked for the pills, “grabbed them and swallowed them,” Harris said.

Jesse, the defense attorney, said Harris told different authorities different stories about what happened that day “to protect [himself].” Harris admitted that he lied to investigators in the beginning, telling them that Adams took the photos and that he didn’t give her any pills.

Jesse said one photo of the nude daughter couldn’t be held against Adams because it only showed the girl’s breasts. The second picture, which was shown only to the jury and is under seal, is the one in question. For the picture to be considered child pornography, Jesse said it has to show sexual contact or the genital area in a “lascivious” manner.

“It’s not child porn,” he argued.

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/06/2014

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