Columbia Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Child Pornography Case Involving Teen

Phillip Wayne Barto, a 43-year-old Columbia man, was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison on a federal charge of sexually exploiting a minor to produce child pornography, according to the United States Department of Justice.

Barto's prison sentence will then be followed by five years of supervised release. U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett also ordered Barto to register as a sex offender wherever he ends up living, working or studying.

The minor, a teenage girl who is a relative of Barto's, had told the Howard County Department of Social Services in December 2009 that she had been sexually abused by Barto since she was 14 years old and that he had taken explicit sexual photos of her, according to the Justice Department.

The abuse happened until she was 17 years old, when she told authorities about it, according to the Justice Department.

Police executed a search warrant on Barto's residence in December 2009, not only finding on his computer explicit sexual photos of the teenage girl, but also finding more than 300 videos and "numerous images" showing minors being sexually abused, according to the Justice Department.

"A number of the images and videos seized from the computer revealed  material which portrayed sadistic, masochistic or other depictions of violence, including bondage of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct," the Justice Department said in a statement back in November. "Barto had shown pictures of child pornography to the girl in connection with his sexual abuse of her."

Barto had pleaded guilty to the charge in November 2010. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years in prison