A 16-plus year veteran of the Newport News Police Department was sentenced this week to 25 years in prison for the sexual exploitation of children and receipt of child pornography.
According to court documents, 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.
In a separate investigation, child sexual assault images were found on a convicted sex offender’s 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, which, 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 Covey, who was arrested last June.
Covey was originally indicted in June 2022 on three counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Law enforcement later discovered an additional cellular phone belonging to Covey that he had concealed in a container in the back of his patrol vehicle. New evidence on this phone led to additional charges of sexual exploitation of a second minor victim, as well as receipt and possession of child pornography counts in a superseding indictment filed in July.
Covey pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of receipt of child pornography in September.
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Chris Graham
