White Earth Man Sentenced to Over 24 Years for Producing Child Pornography

A White Earth man has been sentenced to a little more than 24 years in prison for producing and attempting to produce child pornography.

According to court documents, in December 2020, 34-year-old Ryan Edward Thompson, a.k.a. Ryan Edward Wayne Townsend, knowingly used a minor in sexually explicit activity to produce pornographic images.

The 13-year-old victim used her school-issued laptop to message the national Suicide Prevention Lifeline and disclosed that the defendant began sleeping in her room at night and sexually abused her. Law enforcement responded and later discovered photographs of a sexual nature had been taken with the victim’s own cell phone.

On February 1st of this year, a federal jury found Thompson guilty of two counts of production and attempted production of child pornography. He was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court to 292 months in prison followed by 15 years supervised probation by Judge John R. Tunheim.

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