BENTONVILLE -- An Iowa man received a 40-year prison sentence for possessing child pornography.
Jay Harris, 46, of Sac City pleaded guilty today in Benton County Circuit Court to 20 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.
Harris was arrested Sept. 1, 2017 following an investigation that started April 2017. Bella Vista police responded to a disturbance call concerning Harris and a woman and learned Harris had child pornography on his computer, according to the probable cause affidavit.
Police obtained a search warrant and seized electronic devices from Harris' home, according to court documents.
A forensic evaluation on two laptops and an external drive discovered 1,181 unique illegal child abuse images and and Harris was the main user of the computers, according to the affidavit. The child pornography involved unknown victims ranging in ages from 2 to 15 years old, the affidavit states.
Circuit Judge Robin Green accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Harris to 40 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction followed by a seven-year suspended sentence after his release from prison.
Harris must also be evaluated for sex offender treatment and will be required to register as a sex offender..
He received 361 days of credit for the time he spent in the Benton County Jail awaiting his trial and ordered not to have any unsupervised contact with any minors.
"If you find yourself alone with someone under 18 then it's your duty to turn around and go the other way," the judge told Harris.
NW News on 08/28/2018