Clear Spring man gets 15 years in prison for making child porn

BALTIMORE — A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a Clear Spring man to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in July to a charge of sexually exploiting a minor to produce child pornography.

U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg also ordered Kenneth Eugene Norris, 52, to be subject to lifetime supervision after serving his prison term, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

After receiving a tip from Spanish law enforcement authorities that child pornography was being downloaded from file-sharing websites, the FBI obtained a search warrant for Norris' home, the release said.

Computers, hard drives and memory-storage devices were seized on Sept. 23, 2010, and subsequently analyzed, the release said.

A compact disc was found to contain "videos of two girls under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct," the release said. The girls were performing "various gymnastic exercises" directed by Norris, and the video was produced in Maryland, the release said.

Norris was indicted by a federal grand jury in June and pleaded guilty to the charge in July. The video depicting the girls was believed to have been made in August 2010, according to the indictment.