SPOKANE, Wash. — Nicholas Howard of Spokane has been sentenced to five years in prison following a federal investigation that revealed the man’s long-time membership in child pornography groups on the dark web.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, Howard hid his role as a “senior member” of a website dedicated to child sex abuse and images memorializing that abuse from his family for over 20 years.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reviewed 179 posts by Howard, where he communicated with other users and traded images and videos of child sex abuse material, according to the statement.
The statement says these posts revealed Howard’s stated attraction to children aged “7–14 years old” and said that he had “fantasized” about sexual acts with children for “decades”.
The FBI says Howard also had videos containing Nazi ideology and violent footage of adult women being hung and strangled.
Howard’s phone further revealed that he had been viewing child sex abuse material just minutes before picking up his young daughters on the day of his arrest and used anti-forensic software to help delete and conceal evidence of his crime.
Judge Pennell also ordered Howard to pay $31,000 in restitution to his victims and a $5,000 special assessment under the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Assistance Act of 2018.
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