Man sentenced to 10 years after daughter finds child porn on his phone, turns him in

A Colorado man was sentenced Sept. 14 to more than 10 years in prison, after his daughter discovered child pornography on the repeat sex offender’s cellphone and turned it over to police.

What are the details?

Frank Steven Wietecha Jr., 49, was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months in federal prison by a U.S. District Court judge in Denver, after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography earlier this year.

An investigation of Wietecha was launched in November 2017, when his daughter was using his cellphone and discovered the illicit images. She handed the device over to the authorities, who obtained a search warrant for the phone and several SD cards of Wietecha’s.

Detectives found thousands of images of child erotica and more than 1,000 images of child pornography electronically stored by Wietecha, and analysis of the phone also showed he had used the device to access child pornography websites and to take screenshots of child pornography from his computer screen.

In 2002, Wietecha pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of Sexual Exploitation of a Child due to possession of child porn, and was subsequently arrested three times in later years for failing to register as a sex offender.

Wietecha began serving his sentence immediately after his felony conviction last week, and will be required to serve an additional 15 years under supervision following his release.

According to a Justice Department news release on the conviction of Wietecha, U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said, “Our prosecutors and the FBI leave no stone unturned when it comes to protecting children.

“The FBI remains committed to ensuring those responsible for sexually exploiting innocent children are aggressively investigated and brought to justice,” Troyer said. “This sentence demonstrates that those who possess child pornography will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The age of Wietecha’s daughter was not disclosed in the release.

Anything else?

Last month, a New Mexico man, whose 4-year-old daughter stumbled across child pornography on his phone,  was sentenced to just one year behind bars after deputies said he could have been facing up to 93 years in the slammer, according to the Miami Herald.

Andrew Long, the father of two, was busted after the Department of Homeland Security tipped off the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office that he was involved in the possession and distribution of child porn. During the investigation, Long’s wife confessed that she knew about the images and had confronted her husband after their little girl discovered the illicit material.

Long was arrested in 2016 and again in 2017 on multiple felony child porn charges. He pleaded guilty to one charge, the district attorney dropped the other charges and recommended a minimum sentence of 10 years behind bars.

The sheriff’s office told the Herald that the judge not only capped Long’s prison sentence at one year, he would be allowed to visit his children unsupervised and to go on work release. Having credit for time served, he will likely only spend eight more months in jail.

Juan County Sheriff Ken Christesen called the sentence for Long “absurd.”