A Habersham County man is going to prison for sexually exploiting his 22-month old daughter. Jurors found 40-year-old Charles Keith Herring guilty on two counts of sexual exploitation of children. They found him not guilty on two counts of child molestation.
The verdict follows a four-day trial in Habersham County Superior Court. Mountain Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Russell Smith presided over the case.
During the trial, the State presented evidence that on January 15, 2017, Herring possessed two digital images of a minor child depicting sexually explicit conduct. Prosecutors also presented “other photographs of a similar nature that indicated the charged photographs were lewd,” a press release from the District Attorney’s office says.
Herring was arrested after the images were uploaded to his Google Drive. As required by federal law, Google reported the suspicious images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington D.C. An alert was passed on to the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit (CEACC) which investigated the case.
Witnesses testified in court that the subject of the photos was Herring’s daughter. Jurors acquitted him of child molestation charges related to the acts depicted in the digital images.
The child’s mother issued a victim impact statement. Judge Smith also heard argument and evidence from the State and Defense prior to sentencing. He sentenced Herring to 25 years in prison followed by 15 years on probation.
