Hilo Man Gets 25 Years in Child Porn Case

A former Hilo bookkeeper was sentenced today in Honolulu to 25 years in federal prison for possessing and receiving what prosecutors said was a record amount of child pornography.

Ronald Felts, 67, admitted during court proceedings in federal court that he used the internet to download and save images depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, US Attorney Florence Nakakuni said in a statement.

Nakakuni said Felts purchased access to various websites that offered child pornography. She said two computers and eight external hard drives found by federal agents executing a search warrant on Felt’s home contained approximately 1.7 million pornographic images and 31,000 pornographic videos.

Nakakuni said the majority of those showed children engaged in sexual conduct and included depictions of children under the age of 12.

She said when the FBI submitted Felt’s collection of images and videos to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the center reported that it was the largest personal collection of child pornography it had ever received.

When he handed down the sentence, US District Judge David Alan Ezra described Felts’ collection as “incredibly horrific images,” and said that his possession of those materials, in conjunction with his physical exploitation of a teenage girl, represented the “perfect storm” of child sex offenders.

Upon his release from prison Felts will be required to register as a sex offender and to undergo sex offender treatment. Felts was also sentenced to a five-year term of supervised release following his release.

The case was investigated by the FBI with the assistance of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. US Attorneys Amy Olson and Michael Nammar were in charge of Felts’ prosecution.