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North Las Vegas man gets 10-year sentence in child porn case

Updated January 29, 2019 - 6:41 pm

A North Las Vegas man was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison after his wife reported him to law enforcement in 2017 for uploading child pornography to his Tumblr account.

Johne Lewis Owens II, 43, was sentenced after previously pleading guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada. A district judge also ordered a term of lifetime supervision upon Owens’ release.

Owens admitted to uploading numbers images of child pornography to his Tumblr social media account between November 2015 and May 2016, according to the attorney’s office. On May 14, 2017, Owens’ wife found explicit and sexually abusive photos of her husband and a child on the Tumblr account.

Owens’ wife reported her husband to law enforcement and filed a report, the attorney’s office said. A search warrant showed that Owens’ account was open to the public to view.

He also confessed to taking photos and videos of sex acts with the child, the attorney’s office said.

Court records show that Owens appears to have initially faced charges in North Las Vegas justice court of three counts of sexual assault, sexual assault against a child under 16, coercion with physical force, and five counts of open and gross lewdness before the case was transferred to federal court.

The case was investigated by the North Las Vegas Police Department and the FBI.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.

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