NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – A former sergeant with Newport News Police pleaded guilty Thursday to the sexual exploitation of children and receipt of child pornography.
According to court documents, 39-year-old Michael Nicholas Covey, of Newport News, "used a child to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of producing a visual depiction of such conduct and distributing those images to a sex offender in Ohio."
Child sexual assault images were found on the sex offenders' electronic devices and then submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria.
NCMEC determined the photos were possibly made in Newport News. They then forwarded the information to the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (SOVA ICAC) who then contacted the FBI.
FBI agents then identified who the child was, leading the agents to Covey. He was arrested on June 10.
Covey pleaded guilty to two counts of the sexual exploitation of children and one count of receipt of child pornography and is scheduled to be sentenced on February 22.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum penalty of 80 years in prison.
