An Eddyville man has entered a guilty plea in federal court to possessing child pornography and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
64-year-old Kenneth Swartz agreed to the plea agreement in Paducah on January 25.
In May of 2020, Eddyville Police investigated a complaint at a business of a man, later identified as Swartz, harassing an 11-year-old female and taking pictures. He was arrested on state charges and Eddyville Police conducted a search warrant at his Ladd Road residence.
Police said they found three cell phones and that Swartz was registered as a lifetime sex offender and not allowed to take pictures of juveniles without the parent’s consent.
In June of 2020, Lyon County Sheriff Brent White was informed of two audio recordings from the Crittenden County Jail between Swartz and his mother. The complaint said Swartz told his mother where to find a cell phone in the home and to either hide it or destroy it.
Police were able to locate the phone and submitted it as well as the other two phones found during the search warrant to Homeland Security Investigations for forensic analysis.
One phone had three pictures of nude girls between the ages of two and 10 saved and the second phone that was hidden in the house and the subject of the jailhouse conversation was found to contain 38 images of child pornography.
Police said Swartz had previous convictions of sexual abuse in Bath County and possessing matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor in Fayette County.
In 2016, Swartz was convicted in Lyon County of failing to comply with sex offender registration and sentenced to three years in prison.
Under the plea agreement, the government will seek imprisonment of up to 10 years on the pornography charge and no less than 10 years on the firearms charges.
