[Talking about these kinds of crimes is uncomfortable.  But ignoring them won’t make them go away.  The question isn’t whether these crimes take place in Dubois County.  The question is, who do you want to preside over these cases when they show up in Circuit Court?] 

According to the detective’s affidavit, a Huntingburg man was found to be in possession of numerous videos of young girls.  I will say more about the specifics below, but during the man’s interview, one of the detectives got up and left the room due to the content of the videos. 

As the assigned deputy prosecutor when this case began, I filed multiple counts of Possession of Child Pornography, all of which specified a child under age 12, a child who participated in sexual conduct by the use of force or threat of force, or a child who physically or verbally resisted participating in sexual conduct. 

The defendant ultimately pled guilty to 4 counts of Possession of Child Pornography, with the sentence left up to Judge Verkamp.  At sentencing, the deputy prosecutor who took the case over from me – as I had left the office by this time – called the lead detective to testify. 

In his testimony, the detective stated:  “I think the biggest thing for me was just anger because I couldn’t help those kids or tell what country they’re in . . . .  those kids are probably still in the same situation they were in in those videos and a big part of that is because of people like [the defendant] that choose to [seek] out those videos and have them on their phone and continuously watch them.  If there wasn’t a market for it, just like anything else, there wouldn’t be that product.” 

The detective also testified that, compared to other cases he had worked, some of the videos in this case were the worst that he had seen. 

Judge Verkamp then sentenced the defendant to 2 years in prison, 1 year in work release, 1 year in community corrections, and 2 years on probation.  That was in March of 2024.  But in October of 2024 – over the prosecutor’s objection – Judge Nathan Verkamp modified the defendant’s sentence so that he could serve the rest of the prison portion of his sentence in Dubois County work release. 

You will find more details about the case in the Affidavit for Probable Cause for 19C01-2302-F5-000215 (see below).  But I would strongly discourage most of you from looking at it; there is no need for you to expose yourself to what was done to these children.  However, if you think that Judge Verkamp held this defendant sufficiently accountable for his actions, I invite you to test your opinion by reading pages 7-10.