Casper man sentenced to 30 years in prison for child sex abuse materials

CASPER, Wyo. — On Friday, a Casper man received a 360-month, or 30-year, federal prison sentence for a subsequent offense of sexual exploitation of children, according to court minutes.

Timothy Wales, 43, heard the sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne during the nearly hour-long hearing Friday morning.

Besides the 30-year sentence, Johnson imposed lifetime supervision after Wales’s release from custody, a $100 special assessment payment and $9,000 restitution payment, among other requirements.

According to the minutes, Johnson denied objections raised by Wales’s federal public defender, Craig Silva, to parts of the pre-sentence report. The minutes did not state what the objections were.

The sentence came five months after the Wyoming federal grand jury handed down a four-count indictment on March 13 and three months after Wales pleaded guilty to one count. In exchange for the plea, Johnson granted the prosecution’s request to dismiss three other counts at the sentencing.

The four counts of the indictment were as follows:

• Possession of child pornography: subsequent offense
  • Punishable by 10–20 years’ imprisonment, followed by five years to life of supervised release.
• Distribution of child pornography: subsequent offense
  • Punishable by 15–40 years’ imprisonment, followed by five years to life of supervised release.
• Sexual exploitation of children: subsequent offense
  • Punishable by 25–50 years’ imprisonment, followed by five years to life of supervised release.
  • This count states Wales “knowingly used, persuaded, induced and enticed any minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct … for the purpose of producing and transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct.”
• Commission of a felony sex offense by a registered sex offender
  • 10 years’ imprisonment subsequent to the highest sentence handed down among the first three counts, followed by three years of supervised release.

Each of these counts carries severe financial penalties.

In the third count to which Wales pleaded guilty, the conviction includes a special assessment of at least $5,000 related to the Victims of Sex Trafficking Act of 2015; and up to a $50,000 special assessment and mandatory restitution of not less that $3,000 per requesting victim pursuant to the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018.

Wales has remained in custody since his arrest in March.

Wales was previously convicted in federal court in 2004 of attempting to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity and sexual exploitation of children. He was sentenced to 15 years on the first count to be served concurrently with a 15-year, eight-month sentence for the second count. He lost an appeal to the Denver-based 10th U.S. Court of Appeals in 2005.

The new case began on Dec. 21, 2023, when Instagram reported information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a 51-second video of a nude prepubescent girl possibly in Casper, according to an affidavit supporting the charging documents.

On Jan. 3, the NCMEC sent that cybertip to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The case was assigned to two agents in the DCI’s Casper office, according to the affidavit. An agent researched dates-of-birth matching Wales’s, finding that the suspect had been flagged as a sex offender, had been on federal probation, had an email address matching Wales’s name and was a registered sex offender with the DCI.

The agent contacted Wales’s federal probation officer, who said Wales finished his probation in July 2021, was bisexual and lived with a boyfriend and a girlfriend with her children at the same address in Casper.

The probation officer also said Wales was technologically savvy.

An agent began surveilling Wales’s address and saw vehicles registered to the boyfriend and girlfriend. A few days later, two agents interviewed Wales and later arrested him.

In his Natrona County Circuit Court initial appearance, he was charged with two counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of manufacturing, distributing or possessing with intent to distribute child pornography. His bond was set at $75,000 cash or surety.

The case was later transferred to the Wyoming U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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