Leslie County Man Sentenced for Attempted Production of Child Pornography

ASHLAND, Ky. - A Hyden, Ky., man, Finley Wooton, 33, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge David Bunning to 180 months in prison, following his conviction for attempted production of child pornography.

According to his plea agreement, on April 10, 2023, Wooton engaged in a Facebook Messenger conversation with a minor victim. During the conversation, Wooton sent sexually explicit images and asked for sexually explicit images in return. By doing so, Wooton used Facebook Messenger to attempt to persuade the minor victim to produce child pornography.

Under federal law, Wooton must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 10 years.

Paul McCaffrey, First Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Olivia Olson, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Division; and Col. Phillip J. Burnett, Jr., Commissioner of the Kentucky State Police jointly announced the conviction.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and KSP. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Blankenship is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States. The U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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