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Turlock man convicted of child exploitation
Defendant used a hidden camera at daycare he operated with his wife
adam henry
Adam Henry

A Turlock man who ran a local daycare with his wife has been convicted by a federal jury on charges related to child pornography.

Adam Alan Henry, 39, of Turlock was found guilty on Friday of conspiring to sexually exploit a minor and receipt or distribution of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to court documents and evidence produced at trial, from May 2012 until Sept. 19, 2013, Henry conspired with another person to create video and still images of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. From 2007 through September 2013, Henry used a file-sharing program to receive child pornography.

Henry first came under investigation in September 2013, when a Ceres Police Detective used a software program to check if any internet protocol addresses in Stanislaus County had recently downloaded files from known peer to peer sites trafficking in child pornography. The search revealed an IP address in Turlock and a search warrant was obtained for the subscriber information.

The subscriber information came back to a Turlock business, where investigators traced the IP address to a computer that was assigned solely to Henry, who was the company’s lone information technology employee. No other individual had access to the computer, according to the criminal complaint.

On the hard drive investigators found “numerous child pornography videos under the user account ‘Adam Henry,’” including multiple videos of children being sexually assaulted by adult men and women, according to the criminal complaint.

Ceres Police Detective Britton Moore, who led the investigation, found other files on the hard drive had recently been emptied and suspected Henry had transferred them to a home computer.

A search warrant was obtained for Henry’s home on Burman Drive, where authorities found more than 110 videos downloaded from the internet that showed children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Investigators also found videos from hidden cameras in the Burman Drive home, which was used as a daycare operated by Henry and his wife Angele Henry. The name of the daycare was Turlock Early Enrichment Center. Some of the cameras were hidden over the toilet and the shower in the bathroom, while another was hidden in the master bedroom.

Three videos were catalogued and sorted by the name of a 14-year-old girl who had been recorded using the bathroom and the shower.

The criminal complaint states that in one video from the bedroom, Angele Henry “sets up and adjusts the camera prior to the victim entering the room,” and then proceeds to coax her into removing her bra and trying on a corset. Angele Henry is seen positioning the girl so that the camera has a clear view of her.

Angele Henry had two minor children from a previous relationship living at the home during this time and was caring for two other minor children through the daycare, according to the criminal complaint.

The couple was taken into custody in September 2013 and charged with various crimes related to child pornography. The charges against Adam Henry were dropped and then he was rearrested on similar charges at the federal level. Angele Henry was not charged in federal court. Records from the Stanislaus County Superior Court reveals she is awaiting trial for lewd and lascivious acts with a child between the ages of 14 and 15 years, and using a minor to make obscene matter.

The federal court has scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 5, 2018, at which time Adam Henry faces maximum possible punishments of 15 to 30 years in prison for the conspiracy to sexually exploit a minor charge and five to 20 years in prison for the receipt of child pornography charge. For both charges there is a possible lifetime term of supervised release, a mandatory $100 penalty assessment, and a possible $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.