GRAND RAPIDS -- A federal judge sentenced a Suttons Bay man to prison for distributing child pornography over the internet.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Maloney sentenced Jerry Mikowski to 16 years in prison for distributing images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The judge also ordered Mikowski to serve supervised release for life following his prison term.
Mikowski, 24, was indicted in November and pleaded guilty to the charge in January. Federal prosecutors dismissed a second charge tied to the possession of the images in exchange for the plea.
Investigators found about 5,000 images of minors engaged in sexual activity on Mikowski's computer. The images primarily were of girls under the age of 12, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release. Mikowski sent the images to other people over the Internet.
Mikowski was targeted by an ongoing U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement sting called Operation Predator, said Greg Palmore, a spokesman for that department. More than 250 people in Michigan have been arrested for child sexually abusive activities since the operation began in 2003.
It's common for people who engage in viewing child sexually abusive materials to network with other people who do the same, Palmore said. Mikowski shared the images over an Internet file-sharing network with others, but Palmore wouldn't specify how federal officials honed in on his computer.
There's no indication Mikowski had any contact with the children in the pictures, Palmore said, but officials still were happy to make an arrest.
"The next step is to physically prey on individuals," Palmore said. "It's good to get them at any stage."
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