A Prairie Grove man was sentenced Monday in federal court in Fayetteville to 18½ years in prison for using his cellphone to record a teen girl showering, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Christopher Howe, 42, was sentenced to prison with no possibility of parole, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.
When he gets out of prison, he will be under supervised release for 15 years. He must also pay a fine of $20,000.
Howe was indicted in June on six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty Sept. 17 to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, for which he was sentenced Monday before U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren.
According to his plea agreement, Tontitown police were contacted March 26 by a parent concerned that a man was secretly making video recordings of a teenage relative in the bathroom while she showered.
Officers went to Howe’s home and spoke to someone who said she had discovered multiple videos of the girl on Howe’s cellphone.
In the offense to which he pleaded guilty, Howe had edited a longer video he took of the girl down to a 54-second clip, according to the plea agreement.
The case was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Justice Department, according to the release.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/13/2014