Scioto County man sentenced to 40 years for child sex trafficking
After Larry Dean Porter was arrested in March 2020 on charges related to child sex trafficking, his daughters and other family and friends dug up the yard at his Scioto County home to retrieve and destroy memory cards containing child pornography buried there, according to federal prosecutors.
Porter, 72, of Wheelersburg, will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in federal prison after receiving a 40year prison sentence Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
Federal prosecutors said Porter’s physical and sexual abuse in Scioto County spanned decades and included giving parents drugs — obtained in Columbus and elsewhere — in exchange for access to male and female children he would sexually assault on film to produce pornography from.
Porter would also have the parents sexually assault the children on camera so he could use the video as blackmail, federal prosecutors said. He would bury the flash drives or SD cards containing the child pornography in the yard at his home, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Columbus.
Some of the pornography was kept on a computer at a friend’s home, prosecutors said.
To make sure women complied with his demands and didn’t report his crimes, prosecutors said Porter would duct tape them to chairs, burn them with cigarettes, fire guns by their ears or use other methods of force.
“Larry Dean Porter is a predator who manipulated and abused children and drug-addicted women in southern Ohio for many years. He used force, violence, and threats to coerce these vulnerable victims to engage in sex acts with him,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth L. Parker said in a release. “Though no sentence can undo the indescribable, despicable harm he caused, it is fitting that he will spend the rest of his life where he belongs — in a federal prison.”
Porter pleaded guilty on Aug. 10, 2022 to charges including child sex trafficking, conspiring to engage in sex trafficking by force, and participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison sentenced Porter and also ordered him and his 10 codefendants to pay more than $350,000 in restitution to the victims.
The other 10 defendants charged in the sex trafficking operation all were convicted, according to Parker’s office.
Porter abused some of his victims multiple times a week. Several of Porter’s co-conspirators brought three children under the age of 10 to his home on a regular basis for up to five years in exchange for pills, according to prosecutors.
Porter began sexually assaulting one of these parents under his control years earlier when she was a child and gave her drugs, according to court documents.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office arrested Porter in March 2020 on local charges during a human trafficking sting operation.
After Porter was arrested, federal prosecutors said his relatives and friends attempted to destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses.
In jail calls, Porter’s cousin talked with him about assaulting and potentially killing a witness they believed tipped off law enforcement. jlaird@dispatch.com @Lairdwrites