Carbon man sentenced to six years in state prison for sexual assault

A Carbon County man was sentenced to 4 to 10 years in a state correction institution on Friday after previously pleading guilty to sexual assault counts.

Michael V. Perez, 25, of Summit Hill was sentenced to the state term by President Judge Roger N. Nanovic II on counts of sexual abuse of children and 11 counts of disseminating photo/film of child sex acts. He was originally charged with 44 criminal counts. All the counts were felonies. The state Attorney General’s office prosecuted the case.

Perez told the court, “I take full responsibility for my actions.” He added, “I have a problem. I did wrong.” He asked Nanovic to sentence him to a state prison so he can get the help he needs.

Perez said he had been viewing websites depicting young children performing sex acts for several years.

Nanovic also noted that a presentence investigation report prepared by the adult probation office indicates that Perez was sexually abused as a child.

Nanovic asked why Perez, who was an abuse victim, turned to viewing child pornography. Perez could not give a clear answer.

Deputy Attorney General Angela Lynn Raver, who prosecuted the case, said, although the state sexual offender’s assessment board determined Perez was not a violent sexual predator, and that he did cooperate fully in the investigation, a state prison term was warranted as investigators found hundreds of photos of children performing sex acts on the defendant’s computer.

She added that Perez needs treatment and a state prison term is appropriate to protect the public. He was credited for time served.

Case history

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by agents of the AG office, officials received a tip on Aug. 27, 2018, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Dropbox Inc. had reported several suggestive images and videos that appeared to be child pornography, involving both boys and girls as young as 8, had been uploaded to an account, later discovered to be registered to Perez.

In addition, three videos of the same nature had also been uploaded and were available to the public.

On Oct. 16, following a request for customer information from Dropbox, the state learned that the account had been used since December 2015.

On Jan. 11, 2018, law enforcement conducted surveillance of his home, and on Jan. 30, a search warrant was issued.

Agents of the AG, Homeland Security Investigations and state police executed the warrant and identified Perez as the sole user for the account in question.

Perez agreed to speak with officers and admitted using the Dropbox account in 2015, but hadn’t used it in a while.

He also said he uses a social media application and internet groups to trade pictures of girls in bikinis.

When asked why he doesn’t use Dropbox anymore, Perez said that it had been disabled by Dropbox because someone shared questionable pictures to his account.

Perez then admitted that he has viewed child pornography, beginning around 2014 or 2015, for his own pleasure and that the children in the photos or videos were as young as 11.

Agents then examined Perez’s cellphone and found files that showed the Dropbox account had been used on his phone.

A search of Perez’s Dropbox account also found hundreds of images and videos of children as young as 5 engaging in sexual acts.

In addition to the prison term Nanovic ordered Perez must follow all provisions of Megan’s Law as to registration after he is paroled, he must register for 25 years as a sexual offender, have no unsupervised contact with minors or use of a computer, get a mental health evaluation, supply a DNA sample and pay court costs of about $1,000.

Perez, who has been in the county prison since his arrest, was given credit for 191 days already served.