News : Former Shellsburg man sentenced for filming sexual abuse of 9-year-old girl

A former Shellsburg area man who filmed himself having sexual intercourse with a 9-year-old girl “deserves to go to jail for a very long time,” said Benton County Attorney David Thompson.

Kenneth Pappas recently pleaded to the state charge of second degree sexual abuse in the case.

Thompson said Pappas faces a 25-year prison sentence for that crime in state prison.

But because federal child porn laws are more severe, Thompson prosecuted the abuse charge, but forwarded the charge of filming the sexual abuse to federal authorities for prosecution under child porn laws. Pappas has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison on that charge.

Thompson said Pappas faces a similar charge for abusing a different girl in Linn County at about the same time he was abusing the grl in Benton County.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Pappas will serve all 40 years on the child porn charge. In state the state case, he would have to serve 80 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

The press release from the U.S. Attorney's office appears below:

A man who produced videos of himself sexually abusing a child was sentenced September 18, 2012, to 40 years in federal prison. Kenneth Pappas, age 38, from Mount Vernon, and formerly from Shellsburg, received the sentence after a June 6, 2012, guilty plea to one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of possessing child pornography. Evidence at sentencing showed defendant produced videos of his sexual abuse of a child. Pappas was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Pappas was sentenced to 480 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $200 was imposed, and Pappas must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release. He must comply with all sex offender registration and public notification requirements. This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.” Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 12-25.