COVINGTON, La. — A 40-year-old Covington man pleaded guilty to 200 counts of child pornography and was sentenced to 10 years in prison by District Judge William H. Burris on Wednesday.
A search warrant executed at the defendant Benjamin Edward Evers' residence uncovered more than 200 images and videos of graphic child pornography on his mobile phone.
In an audio interview recorded by police, Evers admitted to having viewed child porn because he was “curious.”
According to Washington-St. Tammany Parish District Attorney J. Collin Sims, the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation received multiple cyber-tip reports in Sept. 2021 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that indicated that the Evers had uploaded images later determined to be child porn to a cloud-based storage service.
“Prior to the extensive changes in Louisiana’s criminal laws enacted in 2017 commonly referred to as ‘Criminal Justice Reform,’ this sex offender would have been facing a minimum of 26 years in prison on these charges due to his prior convictions for distribution of controlled dangerous substances and felony DWI," explained DA Sims, regarding Evers' sentence.
"This case is but one example of how these ‘reforms’ frequently frustrate the efforts of law enforcement and the district attorney’s office to hold child predators appropriately accountable and reduce the sexual exploitation of children.”
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