Ex-weatherman asks for early release on child porn sentence

A former meteorologist for WBNS-10TV is asking to be released early from his prison sentence for downloading thousands of images of child pornography.

But Franklin County prosecutors say Mike Davis should stay behind bars because he still doesn’t acknowledge that what he did was a crime.

Davis, 62, has been serving a four- to six-year prison sentence at Grafton Correctional Institution in Lorain County. He was convicted in January 2020 of multiple counts of pandering sexually-oriented material involving a minor and was sentenced in May 2020.

Davis had worked as a meteorologist for WBNS10TV for more than 30 years prior to his arrest in September 2019. Court records showed more than 15,000 images of child pornography, including images involving children as young as 4 years old, were found on Davis’ laptop and in his email.

Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Karen Held Phipps said when sentencing Davis on May 28, 2020, that the facts of the case were “horrendous” and that Davis had only shown concern for himself throughout the case, refusing to acknowledge the children who were victims. She said she was troubled by how Davis referred to the children in the image as objects.

In a motion filed on Sept. 30, Davis’ attorney, Adam Nemann, said Davis has been accepted into a community-based correctional facility that has an “intensive sex offender rehabilitation program.” Nemann said Davis has been meeting with a psychologist weekly while he has been incarcerated and has maintained the lowest security level available to inmates.

“His fall from grace is a punishment worse than any prison sentence, yet he is pulling himself above the self-pity to move forward with a focus on rehabilitation and family,” Nemann wrote in the motion.

Letters from Davis’ children, wife, other relatives and friends accompanied the motion. None of the letters acknowledged the children in the images as being victims.

“He intends to resurrect himself as a productive member of the community, in certainly a different role, but with kind-heartedness and productiveness,” Nemann wrote.

However, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Kara Keating said in a rebuttal filed on Oct. 14 that Davis continues to show a lack of remorse or understanding of his crimes.

“Absent from the

Defendant’s request for judicial release is any statement from the Defendant that acknowledges he is a sexual offender who viewed pornography that featured children and that he is remorseful for the offense,” Keating wrote.

Davis is currently being housed at one of four prisons in the state that offer a comprehensive sex offender program but Davis is not yet enrolled in the program, Keating wrote. She also said that while Davis said in his motion that he had completed several programs while behind bars, there is no record of those programs being completed on his institutional record.

Keating said in the motion that Davis’ lack of remorse shows he should remain behind bars.

Judge Held Phipps has not yet ruled on the motion for judicial release.