Man sentenced to 40 years in prison for child sex trafficking operation

SCIOTO COUNTY, Ohio (WSAZ) - A man convicted in a child sex trafficking operation in Scioto County was sentenced Tuesday in Columbus to 40 years in prison, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker’s office.

Larry Dean Porter, 72, of Wheelersburg, Ohio, was indicted in June 2020 by a federal grand jury. Investigators say he was the ringleader in an operation involving 11 other defendants who have since been convicted.

Porter also was ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to his victims.

“Larry Dean Porter is a predator who manipulated and abused children and drug-addicted women in southern Ohio for many years. He used force, violence, and threats to coerce these vulnerable victims to engage in sex acts with him,” Parker said in a news release. “Though no sentence can undo the indescribable, despicable harm he caused, it is fitting that he will spend the rest of his life where he belongs – in a federal prison.”

Investigators say “Porter’s physical and sexual abuse of women and children in Scioto County spanned numerous decades and involved additional victims other than those identified in the charged offenses in this case.”

They say he “exchanged drugs obtained in Columbus and elsewhere for sexual access to the children of drug-addicted parents and guardians.”

The FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force started investigating Porter in April 2019 after reports that he sexually abused underage boys and girls in exchange for providing their parents with illegal drugs.

Investigators say he produced child pornography kept on flash drives that he even buried in the yard around his home. They say he blackmailed parents with video recordings and manipulated and sexually assaulted women and children for “several times a week for years.”

Porter was arrested in March 2020 on local charges during a human trafficking sting operation by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

For previous coverage:

Wheelersburg man arrested on human trafficking charges