Man receives 6.5 year prison sentence for uploading child pornography to social media website

Multnomah Co. District Attorney's Office - 01/16/19


Today, Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill announced that 39-year-old Michael Scott Miner received a six and a half year prison sentence for being in possession of child pornography.

During this investigation, law enforcement learned that the defendant used his smartphone to search for, download and duplicate numerous child pornography photos and videos.

“Michael Miner then uploaded these appalling images to a social media website and onto a cloud-based network,” Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney BJ Park, who prosecuted this case, said after sentencing. “Mr. Miner also organized his child pornography files into specific folders. These pictures and videos depicted infants, toddlers and other children being raped. The files Mr. Miner had on his electronic devices were particularly alarming; many of the children were recorded crying, trying to get away from their abusers.”

This investigation began when the Portland Police Bureau receive separate cyber-crimes tips from the two companies that Miner used to upload the images of child pornography. Law enforcement traced the IP address that was used to upload the images to the defendant. 

Law enforcement learned that in August 2018, Miner was being held in the Clackamas County jail on a failure to register as a sex offender case. Police seized his smartphone from his jail property and interviewed Miner, who admitted that he was sexually attracted to children.

On December 13, 2018, Miner appeared before Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Leslie G. Bottomly and pleaded no contest to two counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree.
On January 15, 2019, Judge Bottomly sentenced the defendant to 80 months in prison. He was ordered to register as a sex offender. Upon his release from the Oregon Department of Corrections, Miner will be on three years of post-prison supervision.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office remains committed to prosecuting individuals who manufacture, view, sell, trade or share child pornography.

“These are very serious cases and there is enormous harm done to the children who are exploited,” DDA Park said. “We will do everything we can to hold people accountable for this type of behavior. Every time an image or video of child pornography is shared, the person viewing that material is re-victimizing the child. This is a human crime and we are dedicated to protecting children.”

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office recognizes the work of the Portland Police Bureau for their dedicated efforts of investigating these child exploitation cases.


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