Mar. 18—Porter traded drugs to parents for sex with children
Editor’s note: This article contains descriptions of sexual crimes committed against children and reader discretion is advised.
A 72-year-old Wheelersburg man has been sentenced to 40 years in prison on Tuesday, which Scioto Prosecutor Shane Tieman called a “good sentence” and said that the United States Attorney’s Office did a good job of prosecuting the case that involved the defendant trading drugs for sex with children and then making video recordings of the acts.
“With Mr. Porter’s age, it is effectively a life sentence,” Tieman said, adding that he was glad to see justice done and he thought the sentence would “provide some closure to the victims in this matter. I am happy to see that sentence come out.”
Larry Dean Porter pleaded guilty on Aug. 10, 2022, to conspiring to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, child sex trafficking and participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
Porter was also ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to the victims.
“There are just so many levels of horrible to this case,” Tieman said. “And our local authorities worked very hard with the U.S. attorneys to see this case successfully prosecuted.”
According to press releases from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, agents with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force began investigating Porter in April 2019 following reports from several sources that Porter was involved in sexually abusing male and female minors with the consent of the minors’ parents in exchange for illegal drugs from Porter.
In March 2020, Porter was arrested by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department at the McDonalds in Oak Hill on local charges coordinated by law enforcement.
Porter allegedly offered to pay $80 in exchange for access to a 7-year-old girl.
He was arrested after arriving at a pre-arranged meeting location and allegedly stating he would “be done around midnight” and could return the girl then.
The FBI and the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office searched Porter’s Wheelersburg home.
A federal grand jury originally indicted Porter and several of his family members and associates in June 2020.
According to victims and sources in the ongoing investigation by the FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, Porter sexually abused children and produced child pornography kept on flash drives that Porter used extreme methods to conceal.
The United States Attorney’s office…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Yahoo News – Latest News & Headlines…