Mom admits to using twins, 6, to make child porn with boyfriend

Kevin Murphy
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  7/16/2008 4:52 pm

An Illinois woman admitted in federal court Wednesday to using her twin 6-year-old daughters to produce child pornography with her Iowa County boyfriend.

Carrie Wheaton, 30, told District Judge Barbara Crabb that her daughters were asleep at her home in central Illinois last November when she took digital photos of Roger M. Smith, of Hollandale, performing sex acts on them.

Wheaton, who is currently pregnant, said she had given the girls cough syrup before Smith touched them.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea said he couldn't determine if the girls were asleep or not when photographed. Twenty-three images of the girls engaged in sexually explicit activity were found on a memory card recovered from Smith's bedroom during a search conducted Feb. 28 by state and Iowa county authorities.

A second memory card with an unspecified number of sexually explicit photos apparently taken on Feb. 2 also was recovered from Smith's bedroom on Feb. 28. All the photos were taken at Wheaton's Illinois home and then transported to Wisconsin, O'Shea said.

Smith, 37, was being investigated for exposing a child to sexual activity over the Internet, which led to the search of his Squirrel Hill Road residence.

Wheaton might be the first woman prosecuted in federal court for the Western District of Wisconsin, which encompasses the western half of the state. O'Shea said he couldn't remember another case involving a female. Authorities have withheld her address to prevent identification of her daughters.

Wheaton told a state investigator in February that she had sexual contact with her daughters, and she took photos of Smith doing the same.

Wheaton and Smith each were indicted in March on two counts of using minors for the purpose of producing child pornography. Wheaton also was indicted on two counts of permitting her children to engage in sexual activity for the purpose of producing child pornography.

Smith pleaded guilty last month to using minors to make and possess child pornography. Like Wheaton, Smith faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and statutory maximum of 30 years.

Crabb set Wheaton's sentencing for Sept. 23. Her trial had been scheduled for July 21.

To accommodate Wheaton's pregnancy, her attorney, Erika Bierma, asked Crabb to move Wheaton from the Dane County Jail to a medical center in the federal prison system until her sentencing.

Kevin Murphy
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  7/16/2008 4:52 pm