Two Ohio men recently received prison sentences for sex crimes involving children in unrelated cases.
In federal court, Martin Nathan Ross was sentenced to 148 months in prison on child pornography charges. Ross previously had been convicted of sex crimes involving children in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. He served a five year prison sentence on those prior charges and was required to register as a sex offender.
The new charges against Ross were filed after he shared child pornography on an Internet file sharing network. Ross apparently agreed to share files containing child pornography with an undercover officer posing as another sex offender on-line.
In Warren County, Albert Moore, an 83-year-old Mason man, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sex crimes that started in 1984. The Warren County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office did not release a lot of details about the crimes, but said that “All of the victims were acquainted with Moore and were under 13 years of age at the time of the offenses.” The office also noted that the Mason Police Department began investigating when the victims notified family members of the offenses.”
These two cases suggest that sex offenses involving minor children remain a priority of federal and state law enforcement agencies. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported, for example, that the charges against Ross were part of Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. Allegations of sex crimes involving children – even if later proven to be false — are likely to receive substantial media coverage. At a minimum, the person alleged to have committed the crime will suffer significant damage to his or her reputation. If convicted, a person facing sex crime charges involving minors faces substantial prison terms as well as the requirement to register as a sexual offender. For this reason, it is important to any persons facing an allegation of this type of sex offense to seek a criminal defense attorney who has substantial experience.
