Pair Guilty of Creating Child Pornography of Toddler

CINCINNATI – The second of two defendants in a child pornography production case has been found guilty.

U.S. District Judge Susan J. Dlott found Jason Fletcher, 41, of Franklin, Ohio, guilty of conspiracy to produce and production of child pornography at the conclusion of a bench trial yesterday afternoon.

He and Ciera Richter, 25, of Cincinnati, were indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2017. Richter previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce child pornography.

Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and Steve Francis, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), announced the convictions.

According to court documents, Fletcher was previously convicted by the state of Ohio of importuning a minor, among other crimes. Under the terms of his probation, he was not to possess pornography of any kind.

In May 2017, during a visit with his probation officer, the officer noticed Fletcher had two mobile devices and, after having Fletcher provide access to the devices, started to review the phones’ contents. The probation officer found pornography of a minor female on one of the phones and Fletcher was subsequently arrested.

Search of the phone revealed, among a collection of child pornography, child pornography videos made with the phone. Some of the videos on the phone involve Fletcher, Richter and a two-year-old.

According to evidence at Fletcher’s bench trial and Richter’s plea, in February 2017, on an evening when Richter was babysitting the toddler, Fletcher used his cell phone to record videos of himself molesting the victim, while Richter held and moved the two year old.  Fletcher brought “medicine” with him, which Richter gave to the child. Fletcher was a registered sex offender at the time he made the videos.

Conspiracy to produce child pornography and production of child pornography are crimes that generally carry a potential sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison. Fletcher faces a potential range of 35 years to life in prison, because he has at least two prior state convictions for sex crimes involving children.

U.S. Attorney Glassman commended the investigation of this case by HSI and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, as well as Assistant United States Attorneys Megan Gaffney and Christy Muncy, who are prosecuting the case.

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