A Rowlett man was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in federal prison for filming himself molesting a 7-year-old child, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Mark Alan Miller, 35, was indicted in June 2020 and pleaded guilty in March 2022 to two counts of production of child pornography. He was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle, who handed down the statutory maximum sentence.
According to court documents, police were dispatched to the victim’s home on Jan. 12, 2020, after the victim’s father walked in on the defendant on the floor raping his then-9-year-old daughter.
The father told law enforcement that he and Mr. Miller had been friends for over a decade, and that Mr. Miller was staying overnight at their home. The father heard a noise and went to check on it. When he saw Mr. Miller was not in the living room where he’d been sleeping, the father rushed to the daughter’s room, where he found the defendant anally raping the child. The father held a gun on the defendant until the police arrived.
Mr. Miller immediately confessed to police that he had been sexually touching the child for years, describing their relationship as “a little too close.”
The child was immediately transported to the hospital and on to the Rockwall Children’s Advocacy Center, where she confirmed that Mr. Miller had raped her on multiple occasions and had photographed her genitals and showed her the photos.
When officers confronted Mr. Miller about the photos, he admitted to producing child pornography. A forensic analysis of his electronic devices revealed that he had produced at least five videos and 132 images of child pornography involving the victim dating back two years, to when the child was just seven years old.
At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, a Rockwall Police Department forensic analyst testified that Mr. Miller’s electronic devices contained more than 8,000 sexually explicit images of other children. Further testimony revealed that the defendant even used a revealing image of the victim in this case as his screen saver.
The Rockwall Police Department, the Rockwall County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI’s Dallas Field Office investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks prosecuted the case.
