A Greenwood man is sentenced to six years after he pleaded guilty to child exploitation.
Ewing M. Burnette, 30, was sentenced Tuesday in Johnson County Superior Court 3 for the crime that occurred three years ago. Burnette will serve two years in state prison, two years on home detention and two years of probation. He received 388 days of jail credit for the time he spent on home detention earlier in the case, according to a Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office news release and court documents.
“While there wasn’t a child seated in the chair next to me, the children in those images and videos are real people, real victims. They weren’t given the choice whether they wanted to engage in that kind of activity or whether to have the images of them doing so shared with the world," said Joe Villanueva, prosecutor.
"Each time images like that are shared and re-shared these children are re-victimized. I will always fight to protect children and bring justice to those who seek to abuse them, or are even complicit in their abuse, for their own perverted personal reasons.”
Burnette was arrested in September 2018 on felony counts of child exploitation and possession of child pornography after police found multiple images and videos of child pornography on his computer. The child pornography charge was dismissed, according to online court records.
The investigation began in 2017 due a tip from a nationwide organization that works to prevent and stop child exploitation and help police identify the victims, according to a Greenwood Police Department report.
Police tracked the Internet address for the account connected to uploading the images. The account belonged to Burnette, who was living in Greenwood at the time, according to the report.
The images linked to Burnette included children as young as 4 years old engaging in sex acts, the report said.
Detectives got a search warrant and searched Burnette’s property in September 2018. He told police at the time he downloads child pornography and uploads images to get access to download more photos, according to the report. Police located a large number of video and image files, the report said.
He also forwarded child pornography to others, according to the prosecutor’s office news release.
Burnette was arrested and taken to the Johnson County jail where he was eventually released on bond and served time on home detention, according to online court records.
He is ordered to report to the jail by noon Thursday.
