Iowa City man sentenced to 11 years on child pornography charge

An Iowa City man was sentenced by a federal judge Wednesday to 11 years in prison for receiving child pornography.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, Heath Ashley Harmon, 49, received, uploaded and distributed files that contained child sexual abuse material.

Law enforcement discovered Harmon was distributing child pornography on the internet during an online investigation into the file sharing software BitTorrent. He distributed the content between August 2023 and January 2024.

Law enforcement then got a search warrant for his Iowa City residence and found he had stored child pornography on seven devices, including a laptop, two phones and secure digital cards often used with digital cameras.

After his prison sentence, Harmon must serve eight years of supervised release. He also was ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution.

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