A Maysville man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison on a child pornography charge.
Travis Hull, 43, entered a guilty plea in April to charges of transportation of child pornography, according to information from U.S. District Court in Covington.
Formal sentencing was held Tuesday in Covington before U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning. Hull was ordered to surrender himself into the custody of the Bureau of Prisons before 2 p.m., on Sept. 14.
Hull was originally indicted in May 2016 for “having custody and control of a minor, knowingly attempted to employ and induce said minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct…,” according to court records.
During a period of time in 2013, the defendant resided with a female and a teen-aged girl in a one-bedroom apartment in Maysville, court records show. From about Aug. 31 through Sept. 4, 2013, Hull “surreptitiously placed his cell phone in the only bathroom in the apartment. The smart phone was equipped with an application that activated the camera when it detected motion in close proximity,” according to the plea agreement. Another app on the phone emailed the photographs to an email account belonging to the defendant, court records said.
During the same period of time, Hull used the camera on his cell phone to take sexually explicit pictures of a minor which he also emailed to his computer.
Under mandatory sentencing guidelines, Hull was sentenced to five years in federal prison but could have received up to 20 years. He will also be required to register as a sex offender upon release, a requirement that could be lifelong, according to information from the court.
Hull was originally indicted in 2015 by a Mason County grand jury on 26 counts of possession of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor.
