Man convicted on child porn offenses gets 20-40 years
Third conviction involving child sex
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » A Clifton Heights man already sentenced to 25 to 50 years in a state prison for sexually assaulting two 14-yearold girls was given an additional 20 to 40 years Friday for producing and possessing child pornography.
Brian Winter, 46, of the 100 block of E. Baltimore Avenue, will also have to serve a consecutive five years of sex offender probation under the sentence imposed by Common Pleas Court Judge G. Michael Green.
Police recovered a cell phone from Winter in April 2016 and found 25 images of five nude female children, all under the age of 12, according to an affidavit of probable cause written by Clifton Heights Police Sgt. Stephen Brown and County Detective Mark Bucci.
Three of the children were believed to be under the age of 10, the affidavit says. Some of the images appear to have been taken while the children were sleeping and included sexually explicit material, according to the affidavit.
Winter was arrested in October 2016 and found guilty in March on seven counts of producing child pornography, 21 counts of possessing child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility following a stipulated bench trial before Green.
Winter has been in custody at the county jail in Concord since August 2014 for the prior case involving two teen girls. He initially entered open guilty pleas to two counts each of corruption of minors and indecent assault of a person less than 16 years old in that case, but later withdrew the plea and went to trial. He was convicted on all four counts in June 2016 and was sentenced in October of that year, according to online court records.
Winter had also been convicted of sexual battery in Florida in 1998 at age 22 for offenses involving a 15-year-old girl, according to online records. Assistant District Attorney Bryan Barth indicated Winter served a total of nine years in that case.
In a lengthy statement read to the court Friday, Winter said that he finds sexual abuse of children “heinous beyond words.”
“It is just as intolerable as it is reprehensible,” he said. “For this reason, I wish to profoundly and wholeheartedly apologize to the girls and their families who were all so terribly affected by the alleged circumstances of this case.”
Winter said he has “no excuse” for why he was before the judge Friday, but maintained his innocence and chose his words carefully due to a pending Post-Conviction Relief Act filing in the 2014 case and a planned direct appeal of the verdict in the child pornography case.
Winter, a former tow truck driver, argued in his statement that he has consistently put his life on the line for others and noted he was honored for bravery and dedication as a fire fighter in Drexel Hill.
He also said he single-handedly broke up an armed robbery of a 7-11 and chased down one of the suspects for police; organized a sports league for inmates in Florida; and estimated he had nearly 1,000 sexual partners in his life, attributed mostly to his days as DJ “Snaz Finesse” at local clubs and in Florida.
Winter claimed to have been a model inmate during his time at the county prison and maintains that nothing sexual happened in the 2014 case, indicating he would have taken a plea to furnishing alcohol to minors and corruption of minors without a sexual component.
Winter took exception to Barth previously calling him a “manipulator,” saying he was very hurt by that, and was seeking a mitigated sentence with all charges running concurrently and concurrent to the 2014 case.
Barth, at a prior hearing in June, said he was seeking one to two years for each possession charge running consecutively, for a total 21 to 42 years. He argued each of the images represents a separate, individual offense and that Winter could face up to 25 to 50 years for each charge.
This is Winter’s third conviction for sexual offenses involving children, but he has not taken “one iota of responsibility,” said Barth. He noted Winter is already a lifetime sexual offender registrant under Megan’s Law, has been diagnosed with pedophilia, and has consistently been convicted of taking advantage of the most vulnerable members of society.
“He’s not a good person. He’s proven time and time again that he is a very, very, very bad person,” said Barth. “He has the audacity to say that he lives his life to serve others? Every time he’s been given a chance to accept responsibility and turn his life around, he’s gone and done a more horrific act than the last time before. He hasn’t learned his lesson, he’s never going to learn his lesson and he needs to be punished for that.”
Green said the sentence imposed Friday would run from the date bail was set on Oct. 19, 2016, but is consecutive to the 2014 case. Winter is not eligible for early release.