Local man sentence in child porn case

Christopher Swicegood

Christopher James Swicegood, 22, of Mountain Home, was sentenced today to 180 months in prison for possession of sexually explicit images of prepubescent minors, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced late Tuesday.

Also according to the plea agreement, Swicegood also admitted sexual interactions, including sexual touching, with at least three different minor children in the Mountain Home area. He was originally charged in Elmore County with Lewd or Lascivious Acts on a Minor Child under the age of 16 years. Those charges were dismissed by motion of the prosecuting attorney on June 13 as a part of Swicegood's agreement to admit that conduct in his federal plea agreement.

The defendant was given three-and-a-half months credit for time served in state custody. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill also ordered Swicegood to serve 35 years of supervised release following his release from prison.

According to the plea agreement, the investigation began in January 2013, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators followed a lead provided by a foreign government concerning users of a website used extensively by persons interested in exchanging child pornography.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for the home Swicegood shared with others in Mountain Home and found images and videos on a computer and hard drive Swicegood owned of prepubescent minors being sexually abused.

Swicegood admitted that he had posted child pornography on the foreign website and that he had traded child pornography with other users of the foreign website.

Swicegood will forfeit the computer equipment used in the home.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children examined the material found on Swicegood's media and identified 230 image files from 57 known child pornography series, and 30 videos from 14 separate child pornography series. Each series represented a different minor victim or group of minor victims being sexually abused. The victims come from a variety of states of the United States and many foreign countries.

For more information on this story see next week's Mountain Home News.