MISSOULA — A Flathead County resident has admitted to a charge of sexual exploitation of a child.
Allen Duane Turman, 43, pleaded guilty on Thursday in a Missoula federal courtroom and now faces a maximum sentence of 15 years to 30 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and five years to life supervised release.
Prosecutors say that in October 2017, law enforcement received a call about a thumb drive that belonged to Turman. An analysis of files on the thumb drive found it contained a video of a girl who was under the age of 18 and that the video was created a year or two earlier in Kalispell.
The video depicts the girl engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Other files on the device indicated that Turman had created the video.
When interviewed in August 2018, Turman said he was using drugs at the time and that his memory was poor. While he did not specifically recall making the video on the thumb drive, he did not dispute that he created it.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cyndee Peterson is prosecuting the case, which was investigated by the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office, the Billings Police Department and the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
