An Oregon man who watched pornographic videos of tortured girls has been sentenced to probation and 90 days in jail to be served “at his convenience,” according to a police report.
On Wednesday, Scott Johnson, 27, of St. Helens, Ore., about 30 miles north of Portland, pleaded guilty to three counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree. The guilty plea marked the culmination of a two-year investigation that began when the state Department of Justice alerted local authorities that child pornography had been uploaded to a messaging app in the St. Helens.
Investigators then zeroed in on Johnson as a suspect and seized his phone. A forensic examination of the phone revealed it contained child pornography, according to a police statement. The nature of the evidence on the phone was particularly egregious. Fox News reported that it involved “the graphic sexual abuse and torture of young girls.”
When questioned, Johnson told authorities that “sometimes people will message him asking if they want to see something” and then they sent him that material. Investigators determined that Johnson received a series of links and continued to click on all of them, even after he knew they would direct him to child pornography.
In an effort to strike a deal, Columbia County prosecutors offered Johnson a 60-month sentence. However, Johnson declined this offer and decided to take his chances with the judge.
“He rejected our offer, pleaded guilty and asked the judge for probation over our objection,” the district attorney’s office said.
This decision worked in his favor. According to a statement from the police department of St. Helens, “Johnson was ultimately sentenced to five years of probation and 90 days in jail to be served on weekends at his convenience.”
In Oregon, promoting child sexual abuse in the first degree is a Class B felony, a felony that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Johnson’s light sentence appears to follow a pattern of soft-on-crime policies in the state in recent years. In April 2022, while still governor, Kate Brown (D) granted clemency to a murderer who had previously been sentenced to life in prison without parole, putting a violent criminal back on the streets, and Portland had more murders in 2021 than in no other time in history Travelers Worldwide recently warned would-be visitors that burglary and theft, vandalism, auto theft and assault are among “the city’s most common crimes.”
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