Escambia Sex Offender Sentenced To Federal Prison For New Child Porn Offenses

July 1, 2024

An Escambia County man has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison after previously pleading guilty to online receipt of child pornography.

Donovan Eugene Whidden, 21, was sentenced this week.

In September 2023, authorities received cybertips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that led back to Whidden’s residence.  Law enforcement was aware that Whidden was on state court probation for a conviction for Promoting Sexual performance by a child in 2022. A search warrant was obtained for his residence, and law enforcement located evidence of Whidden utilizing the media platform Discord to upload and obtain child pornography.  Whidden also used a cloud storage platform to maintain his child pornography.

“Protecting innocent children from sexual predators remains one of our highest priorities,” said U.S. Attorney Jason R. Coody. “I commend our law enforcement partners and prosecutors who work tirelessly to identify these predators and bring them to justice so that they may never exploit a child again. Due to their collective efforts, our community is safer, and this repeat offender is exactly where he belongs – behind bars.”

Whidden’s prison sentence will be followed by 10 years of supervised release, and he will be required to register as a sex offender and will be subject to all sex offender conditions.

Comments

8 Responses to “Escambia Sex Offender Sentenced To Federal Prison For New Child Porn Offenses”

  1. Bob on July 3rd, 2024 6:22 pm

    @Eric M

    Why should we use the death penalty instead of life in prison?

  2. Don Fletcher on July 2nd, 2024 11:50 am

    To Jkh: “People like this deserves the hashish punishment.” Doesn’t sound like too bad a punishment to me. Just kidding.

  3. Eric M on July 2nd, 2024 6:50 am

    @Bob. I’ll say it for @Bill. People like that can’t be rehabilitated. We should have the death penalty for those sickos.

  4. Bob on July 1st, 2024 6:01 pm

    @Bill T

    What would that be, Bill? Why don’t you go ahead and say the quiet part out loud?

  5. Jkh on July 1st, 2024 4:13 pm

    He shouldn’t be protected in the prison let the men in there know what he has done more than likely more times then we know people like this deserves the hashish punishment

  6. Grandma on July 1st, 2024 2:23 pm

    Parasite!

  7. Bill T on July 1st, 2024 12:42 pm

    This one is very sick and unfortunately I don’t believe any type of prison time will help this one !! There is only one thing that will stop a warped minded person like this and I don’t think I need to say it we all already know !!!!

  8. Susie on July 1st, 2024 11:26 am

    Thank you to Law Enforcement for all you do to keep these worms away from our children. God bless you.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News