AUSTIN, Minn. – An Austin, Minn., man will serve no prison time under the terms of a plea deal on charges of possession and dissemination of child pornography.
Dughlas Lionel Hill, 30, had a 24-month prison sentence stayed in Mower County Court on Friday, and was instead placed on probation for five years under the terms of a plea agreement approved by Judge Jeffrey Kritzer.
Charges say the Austin Police Department received information on two separate occasions in January and August 2021 from an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) report that an online document storage company had informed the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that files containing child pornography had been uploaded to the account of one of their users: 13 files in one report and seven files in another report.
The criminal complaint describes that an investigator with the Austin Police Department viewed and confirmed graphic videos that depicted sexual acts involving adults and female and male minors in the age ranges of 8 to 12 years old.
Hill was charged with two felony counts of dissemination of child pornography and two felony counts of possession of child pornography. He initially denied to investigators that he had uploaded any images to the online storage provider but admitted to viewing hundreds of child pornography files and saving child pornography to an old phone and a laptop that he had recently sold. Hill told investigators that he didn’t know at the time it was child pornography.
The plea agreement provided that Hill would plead guilty to one count of dissemination and one count of possession of child porn in exchange for no executed jail time as a condition of the stayed sentence. The other two felony counts were dismissed at sentencing.
Hill’s conditions of probation include prohibitions on using or possessing drugs or alcohol and using social media or the internet. Hill must register as a predatory offender and is required to attend and successfully complete an outpatient sex offender treatment program.
“We need to understand that the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission defines child pornography as images that ‘frequently depict children, toddlers, and infants being sexually assaulted, physically abused, tortured, and humiliated.’ Every child porn image is a crime scene,” said Julie Quist, board chair of the Child Protection League.
“Yet in Minnesota 74-86% of these dangerous convicted predators receive only probation, with minimal to no prison time, no identification as a sexual predator, and no public record of criminal offense. Minnesota’s criminal justice system and many of our judges are a clear endangerment to children,” she added.
Hill was charged by court summons, as opposed to a warrant, and court records do not show any orders to complete a jail booking, therefore a booking photo for Hill is not available.
This article originally appeared at Alpha News.
