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An Upper Michigan man has been sentenced to prison on child pornography charges.
28-year-old Eric Masters of St. Ignace was sentenced to 50-years in federal prison for producing child pornography involving three girls, aged 18 months to 12 years old. He also was ordered to pay over $76,000 in restitution.
U-S District Judge Robert Holmes Bell called it one of the worst scenarios that he’s ever seen.
Masters pleaded guilty in federal court in September 2014 to three counts of producing numerous child pornography videos and photographs between May 2012 and August 2013.
Authorities say over the course of five years, Masters molested five young girls in Kent, Ionia, Muskegon, Grand Traverse, and Mackinac Counties. It started when he was on active duty with the Coast Guard in 2011 when he took an 18-month old to a motel room and violently assaulted her, and got it all on video.
Masters also sent his videos to other child porn collectors in Tennessee.
Three of the victims’ cases were resolved in the federal case, and the other two were addressed in separate state court charges.
