Man gets 7 years on child porn counts

A man was sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to child pornography charges. Kenneth R. Hawk, 46, whose last known address is Bloomville, pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon in Seneca County Common Pleas Court Judge Steve Shuff’s courtroom to charges in two cases. The charges were two counts of illegal use of a minor in a nudity-oriented material or performance, one of which is a second-degree felony and the other a fifth-degree felony, and one count each of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor, both fourth-degree felonies. Hawk was arrested after Tiffin police were alerted of suspicious activity at Tiffin-Seneca Public Library Feb. 25. Two girls had seen Hawk using a fictitious Facebook page to interact with a girl and alerted police. Hawk was arrested later in Willard after nude photographs of juvenile girls were found on his cell phone. Lt. Mark Marquis of Tiffin Police Department said after the nude photographs were found, a search warrant revealed additional nude photographs on a laptop and hard drive belonging to Hawk. He said those photographs led to the additional charges in a second criminal case. Marquis said the several images and videos of child pornography recovered appeared to have been downloaded from the Internet or obtained from file sharing. Hawk spoke prior to the announcement of his sentence Thursday. “I just want to say I’m sorry for what I did,” Hawk saidl. He also said he wanted to seek help and asked Shuff to accept the joint sentence recommendation, which suggested a seven-year prison term. Hawk’s attorney, Jonathan Stotzer, also asked Shuff to sentence Hawk to seven years in prison. Seneca County Assistant Prosecutor Brian Boos said Thursday that Hawk has a previous federal conviction similar to the Seneca County charges. According to the U.S. District Court website, Hawk pleaded guilty to a charge of receipt of child pornography in 2001 and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Shuff also ordered Hawk to register as a Tier II sex offender, meaning he will have to register his address and place of employment and education every 180 days for 25 years.