A 47-year-old man from Deming, Washington, has been sentenced to more than 13 years in federal prison after being found guilty of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material.
Robert J. Howell Jr. was convicted in April and appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Tuesday, where he was ordered to serve 160 months in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release. In addition to the prison sentence, Howell must pay $141,000 in restitution to 47 victims.
Presiding Judge John C. Coughenour remarked during sentencing that Howell “poses a danger to the community and has a complete lack of contrition.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, prosecutors demonstrated at trial that between 2016 and 2019, Howell received five specific files containing child sexual abuse material and knowingly possessed many more. Federal agents seized more than 75 electronic items from his home, including computers, phones, tablets, hard drives, gaming devices, and CDs, which have since been forfeited to the government. Investigators said they discovered more than 90,000 files in total.
Authorities first became aware of Howell in late 2019 when law enforcement in a foreign country alerted Homeland Security Investigations that an IP address linked to his residence had accessed a website dedicated to child sexual abuse material.
