February 26, 2015

Wisconsin Man Sentenced to More Than 19 Years on Child Exploitation Charges

A man who transported a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity was sentenced February 24, 2015, to over 19 years in federal prison.

Christopher Heath-Lowther, age 30, of Platteville, Wisconsin, received the sentence after a November 3, 2014, guilty plea to one count of transporting a minor across a state line with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and one count of traveling across a state line for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct. At the guilty plea hearing, Heath-Lowther admitted that, between December 2013 and February 2014, he traveled from Wisconsin to Iowa to meet a 14-year-old female and transported her to Wisconsin for the purpose of engaging in sex acts with her.

Heath-Lowther was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Heath-Lowther was sentenced to 235 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $200 was imposed, and Heath-Lowther must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release. He must comply with all sex offender registration and public notification requirements.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Platteville, Wisconsin, Police Department, and the Maquoketa Police Department.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 14-1014.