Last week, David Roger Franklin, 68, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for making, possessing, and sharing images of child abuse. Last year, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to three counts of producing child abuse images and one count each of transporting and possessing child sexual abuse images. Franklin, who most recently worked as president of Food Facility Engineering.
He was busted after an IT worker found a folder containing images of abuse in 2022. Police found that the photos were taken by Franklin’s cellphone of a 4-to-6-year-old girl he knew. Investigators state that told her that was their “little secret.” Franklin had served as an Assemblies of God pastor and chaplain in the Civil Air Patrol. After his trial, he was sentenced to a lengthy stint in prison.
“Acting United States Attorney Richard R. Barker announced that on February 18, 2025, Chief United States District Judge Stanley A. Bastian sentenced David Roger Franklin, age 68, of Yakima, Washington, to 30 years in federal prison for production, transportation, and possession of child … abuse material,” said the Department of Justice. ” Chief Judge Bastian also imposed 10 years of supervised release.”
“‘I am so humbled by the courage of the victim in this case, who suffered such incredible harm, but nonetheless came forward and stood up to Mr. Franklin,” stated Acting United States Attorney Rich Barker,” in the same document. ‘“In their victim impact statement, the victims put it like this: ‘I trusted [Mr Franklin] and he betrayed me.’ ”
“My team of devoted public servants and prosecutors will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that those who betray young children are held accountable for their actions,” explained the DOJ. ‘“Possessing child sexual abuse material is disturbing enough, but producing it, as Mr. Franklin did, is another thing entirely.” said W. Mike Herrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office.”
‘“He committed these acts without concern for the potentially devastating effect on the child he victimized. I thank the investigators who work these difficult cases diligently and methodically every day to hold offenders accountable for this appalling conduct,”’ concluded the document. According to court documents, Franklin said his family was “unable to look past the sin and love the sinner.”
Richard Lee Sentell, a former senior pastor at the now-defunct Cornerstone Church of God in Cleveland, TN has been sentenced to 8 years for possession of indecent images of minors. He was sentenced after he pled guilty this Friday. In 2023 the Church of God removed him as a pastor. Sentell is not eligable for parole. His church has cut all ties with the disgraced pastor.
“In the summer of 2023, the Cleveland Police Department received a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“NCMEC”). The tip stated that a user in Cleveland, Tennessee uploaded two images of child … abuse material to a website called BingImage,” police said. “BingImage is an AI-assisted tool which allows a user to upload an image and locate additional images which are similar to the one uploaded.”