Northern District of Texas | 35-year-old man sentenced to 50 years in prison for filming the sexual assault of a 9-year-old

A Granbury man was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison Thursday for filming himself abusing a 9-year-old girl, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton announced.

Stephen Wayne Ashley Jr., 35, was charged in March and pleaded guilty in May to sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman to 600 months in prison — 360 months for the sexual exploitation charge and 240 months for the child pornography charge, to run consecutively. Judge Pittman also ordered the defendant to pay $13,500 in restitution to several victims and to register as a sex offender.

“This suspect chose to repeatedly sexually exploit a child and then made a conscious decision to film himself while he was committing these heinous offenses,” said Jesse Woods, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of HSI Dallas. “HSI is grateful for the cooperation of all of our law enforcement partners for their roles in this investigation, which will ensure this individual will never harm an innocent child again.”

According to court documents, the investigation began when New South Wales police in Australia began investigating an individual who was sharing links to child pornography on Twitter (now known as X). One of the links, which contained more than 1,600 files, mostly child pornography, was traced to Mr Ashley.

On March 11, officers executed a search warrant at Mr. Ashley’s residence, where they found Mr. Ashley’s cell phone. On the phone, they found a hidden folder containing videos of Mr. Ashley sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl.

After obtaining his maternity certificate, Mr Ashley admitted to officers that he began filming the child when she was 7 and continued to do so for years.

Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation with assistance from the New South Wales Police and the Hood County District Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aisha Saleem prosecuted the case.