NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – As part of a plea agreement, a Chesapeake man has been sentenced to 36 years in prison on child porn charges. Jonathan Wilson, 35, had previously pleaded guilty to two charges of producing child pornography.
At sentencing Thursday morning in federal court, Chief Judge Mark Davis called it the worst case involving child pornography in his 20 years on the state and federal benches.
The crimes began when the child was just 2, and continued for two years. Davis told Wilson his victim was “completely defenseless.”
Wilson created more than 1,000 pictures and videos of the child and then shared them on the internet and through the Kik and Telegram platforms.
Chesapeake police began investigating after a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A woman in Belgium alerted authorities there, who then notified the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
A DHS agent who testified at sentencing said a shared image of the girl was recovered in a separate investigation in Nebraska.
The child’s mother told the court Wilson “used a child who was still in diapers for his own sexual gratification”. She says her daughter will have to deal with numerous problems later in life, including depression, guilt, anxiety and relationship problems. She and her daughter have moved to another state.
“Our journey of survival has just begun,” she told the court, fighting back tears.
The mother also read a statement to the judge from the little girl herself. It said in part, “Please make sure he gets locked up really tight…. God does not like when bad things happen to children.”
Wilson was arrested in January 2022 on similar state charges after Chesapeake police searched his home. Those charges have since been set aside, but the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office says they will now follow through on those state charges.
Wilson was also previously facing nine federal charges, including eight counts of producing child pornography and one count of distributing it.
The case has been described as being one of the most disturbing, and Federal Magistrate Judge Douglas Miller said in March 2022 that the case involved “some of the most serious charges I’ve ever seen.”
According to the indictment, Wilson produced child pornography on eight occasions from August 2020 until December 2021. Assistant U.S. Attorney, Elizabeth Yusi revealed during the bond hearing that police seized multiple devices from his apartment that had about 1,500 images of the victim.
The crimes involved a girl who was under the age of four during the majority of the time the crime was occurring.
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