CEDAR CITY — A Southern Utah woman and a New York man have each received lengthy federal prison sentences in connection with a case that involved creating and sending online sexually explicit videos of a 2-year-old child.
Mary Jean Royce, 30, of Beaver, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in January by U.S. District Judge David Nuffer.
According to a plea agreement signed on Jan. 18, 2023 and filed in U.S. District Court the following day, Royce agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of sexual exploitation of children / production of child pornography.
Two other federal counts against Royce, related to possession and distribution of child pornography, were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
After serving her 120-month term in a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility, Royce will be on supervised probation for the rest of her life, the court ordered. No fines were imposed, other than a mandatory $100 fee.
As previously reported, Royce was arrested at her residence in Beaver in March 2020 following an investigation conducted by the Utah Attorney General’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
According to the charging documents filed in support of her arrest, sometime between Sept. 9, 2019 and March 25, 2020, Royce filmed sexually explicit videos of a 2-year-old girl and sent them out of state to another person via Facebook.
Investigators later identified the man whom Royce allegedly sent the videos to as Brian A. Whitney of Rochester, New York.
Whitney’s sentencing took place on Friday, June 23. He had earlier pleaded guilty to a single felony count of production of child pornography. Judge Nuffer ordered that the 66-year-old Whitney serve 15 years (180 months) in federal prison, followed by 10 years of supervised parole.
On May 4, 2020, before her case went federal, Royce had pleaded guilty in Utah’s 5th District Court to two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony, each punishable by 1-15 years in Utah State Prison. Three months later, in August 2020, Royce was transferred to federal custody. Then, in January 2023, as her federal proceedings were wrapping up, Royce’s state charges were updated and she was given four years’ probation instead of additional prison time.
Royce is currently incarcerated at Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. Meanwhile, Whitney has been incarcerated as a federal contract prisoner at Iron County Jail in Cedar City since Sept. 30, 2020.
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