Background
Benjamin Riley Blankenship pleaded guilty to receiving and distributing child pornography. He was sentenced to one hundred eighty months in prison with eight years of supervised release. His counsel moved to withdraw and filed a brief challenging the sentencing enhancement and the substantive reasonableness of the sentence.
The court’s reasoning
The court concluded the district court did not clearly err in finding that Blankenship attempted to produce child pornography. The context of his communications with minors on Snapchat demonstrated he knowingly attempted to persuade them to engage in sexually explicit conduct. The court further found the sentence was not substantively unreasonable because the district court considered statutory factors and did not commit a clear error of judgment. The court independently reviewed the record and found no non-frivolous issues for appeal.
What it means going forward
The judgment of the district court is affirmed, and the defendant’s sentence stands.