A Grandville man accused of drilling a hole in a bedroom wall to take videos of a naked 12-year-old girl has been convicted of attempted sexual exploitation of a child.
Jurors in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids found Michael Andrew Schwartz guilty Thursday on four felony counts that could put him in prison for decades.
Schwartz, 47, was indicted last year on four charges, including sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography.
The government said he fled Michigan to avoid prosecution. He was charged in Kent County on May 8, 2015, indicted by the feds in August and arrested Sept. 17 in West Columbia, S.C.
The government said he drilled a waist-high hole into the wall of a 12-year-old girl’s bedroom and recorded her when she was naked.
Police also found more than 1,000 images of child pornography on his computer.
The man’s wife found video of the girl on a Samsung Tablet in late March, 2015 and called Grandville police. Federal prosecutors say they believe the recordings were made on a cell phone and downloaded to the computer.
After the video was turned over to officers, Schwartz called Grandville police and asked “what kind of trouble he could be in if he, hypothetically, was the one who took the video, which he claimed he was not,’’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Hessmiller wrote in a trial brief.
Schwartz “stated that he was not the one who took the video but could not explain who might have taken it instead,’’ Hessmiller wrote.
A search of his laptop computer turned up more than 1,000 images of child pornography and images of Schwartz, including nude ‘selfies,’ Hessmiller wrote.
“The majority of the images were of prepubescent girls between the ages of 10 and 12 years old,’’ Hessmiller wrote. “There were several images of children involved in sex acts with adults as well as children in bondage and images of bestiality.’’
After being confronted by Grandville police, Schwartz asked Google to delete his online account.
Child pornography was also found in a Dropbox account, which is an Internet-based file storage service. Schwartz was offered a plea deal, which he rejected, opting instead to take his chances at trial.
Jurors deliberated about an hour before returning guilty verdicts late Thursday afternoon. Sentencing before U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell has been set for June 14.
Schwartz faces between 15 and 30 years for sexual exploitation of a child and up to 10 years for possession of child pornography.
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/local/grandville/peep-hole-and-porn-bring-felony-convictions/67878924
