NEWPORT NEWS — A local man with a significant history of sexual offenses involving minors was sentenced Thursday to 235 months in prison for attempted receipt of obscene images depicting the sexual abuse of children, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and penalties for a registered sex offender.
A federal jury in May found Elmer E. Eychaner III, 46, guilty of those charges.
According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Eychaner previously was convicted in federal court of child pornography crimes in 2008.
On June 13, 2016, Eychaner began a period of federal supervision in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He originally was prohibited from having a computer, but he requested one so he could look for a better job. The probation office allowed Eychaner to have a computer, but it was monitored through a third-party company.
On Nov. 17, 2016, Eychaner went onto his government-monitored computer and searched for obscene cartoon images depicting the sexual abuse of minors, federal prosecutors said.
He used voice recognition software to try to evade the computer-monitoring software. After he was done searching for the images, he deleted his search history, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He called his federal probation officer the following day and confessed. When the probation officer told Eychaner she was coming to collect his computer, he admitted that he had removed the hard drive and thrown it down a storm drain, prosecutors said.
Eychaner previously was convicted of promoting obscenity to minors in North Dakota on Aug. 21, 1992, and gross sexual imposition in the same state on May 10, 1994.
