A Novato man was sentenced in federal court in San Francisco today to 15 years in prison for producing a child pornography video on his iPhone last year.
Jonathan Hill, 31, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in March to one count of producing child pornography.
An FBI affidavit filed in the case last year said that Marin County sheriff’s deputies who arrested Hill in March 2010 determined that the video showed a 9-year-old girl exposing her chest and pulling down her pants and also depicted Hill exposing himself to the girl.
The 15-year sentence handed down by White was the mandatory minimum required by federal law for the conviction.
White also ordered Hill to pay $10,000 each to the victim in the 2010 video and to another girl pictured in a different video made by Hill in 2005.
Hill was charged in federal court last year with producing the 2005 video as well, and admitted during his guilty plea to having made it, but that charge was dismissed by prosecutors today as part of the plea bargain.
Hill, a carpenter who worked with his father in a contracting business, told White, “I’m very sorry” for the effects of his acts on the victims, the community and his family.
Hill was arrested by sheriff’s deputies on March 20, 2010, after a third girl, who was 10 years old, reported that he had exposed himself to her near an elementary school in Marinwood. He has been in custody without bail since then.
Deputies who searched Hill’s home found child pornography and items such as duct tape, plastic ties, latex gloves and condoms that “appear(ed) to be a kit of supplies for abduction and rape,” the FBI affidavit said.
In Marin County Superior Court, Hill still faces separate state charges of annoying or molesting children or indecent exposure in three incidents in Marinwood and Kentfield between March 9 and 20, 2010.
Marin County prosecutors have said those incidents involved four girls between the ages of 9 and 11. The charges include four felony counts and eight misdemeanor counts.
At the request of defense attorney Douglas Horngrad, White delayed the start of Hill’s federal prison term for 90 days so that Hill can be temporarily returned to Marin County jurisdiction to resolve the state charges.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Barry Borden said this afternoon that prosecutors will consider the federal prison sentence when deciding how to handle the state charges, but said, “We have not formally agreed” that any state sentence would be concurrent with the federal term.
Julia Cheever, Bay City News
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