A young man from Sierra Vista will be sentenced next week to 20 years in prison after a child pornography investigation in 2021 led to revelations that he had molested a preschool-aged relative.
Nicholas Harris entered two guilty pleas last month, admitting to sexual contact with a minor as well as attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. Both crimes occurred in 2021.
Harris, now 20, will be sentenced May 12 to prison without the option of early release. He will be on lifetime probation upon his release, according to terms of the plea agreement negotiated with the approval of the young victim’s family.
Court records show Harris came under investigation as an 18-year-old as the result of an April 2021 cybertip to the multi-agency Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.
The tip involved the uploading of several illicit images of children via the KiK, an instant messaging app that uses a smartphone’s internet connection to transmit and receive messages, photos, videos, sketches, mobile web pages, and other content.
A detective with the Sierra Vista Police Department who is part of the taskforce viewed three of the images and confirmed they met the statutory requirements for sexual exploitation of a minor, the Arizona law which covers the possession and transmission of child pornography.
Over the next several months, search warrants were issued for information related to IP addresses and service accounts connected to file transfers of the images. Two accounts were identified, both which were connected to people close to Harris.
The detective, who knew Harris had been the subject of multiple sexual misconduct incidents as a young teen in 2016 to 2017, met with Harris and two family members on Dec. 1, 2021. One of the family members was Harris’ legal guardian even though Harris was an adult.
During the interview, Harris “admitted to receiving and transferring images of children which contained illicit content,” according to the detective’s probable cause statement. “Harris said he was experimenting with the viewing of the illicit child material and denied any ‘Hands On’ type offenses with children.”
But the next day, Harris’ guardian called the detective to report that Harris confessed after the interview to having engaged in sexual conduct with a five-year-old girl a few weeks earlier.
A forensic interview of the girl led to the girl’s description of the sexual abuse. Harris was placed under arrest Dec. 3, 2021, and has remained in pretrial custody since then.
Soon after, a Cochise County grand jury indicted Harris on three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in connection with videos he possessed which depicted the sexual abuse of children. He was also indicted on two counts of molestation of a child.
All five counts were charged as dangerous crimes against children due to the age of the victims. Such crimes are ineligible for early release credits against prison sentences.
Terms of the plea agreement call for the other charges against Harris to be dismissed. Once released from prison he must register as a sex offender.