A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging a sergeant with the Newport News Police Department with three counts of the sexual exploitation of a child.
According to allegations in the indictment, Michael Nicholas Covey, 39, of Newport News, used a child to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purposes of producing a visual depiction of such conduct.
According to allegations in the criminal complaint filed last week, in a separate investigation, child sexual assault images were found on a convicted sex offenders’ electronic devices in Cincinnati, Ohio. Those images were submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria.
During the analysis of the images, NCMEC determined that the images may have been produced in Newport News. NCMEC forwarded the information to the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, who, in turn, contacted the FBI.
Agents with the FBI were able to identify the child depicted in the images. Further investigation led the agents to the defendant, Michael Nicholas Covey. He was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on June 10.
Covey is charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
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