A Woodland Park woman who filmed and distributed sexually explicit videos of herself molesting a pre-school girl has been sentenced to 27 years in a federal prison.
U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson also sentenced Rhiannon Carnahan, 30, to 10 years of community supervision following her release from federal prison. She will be required to register as a sex offender.
Carnahan entered a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Denver on charges of production and transportation of child pornography that requires her to fully cooperate in investigations of other child pornographers.
Colorado Springs police were investigating the activities of a child pornography sex ring when they learned that Carnahan frequently posted sexually graphic videos and photographs of child pornography on a phone messaging application called Kik Messenger.
The porn ring came to light when a woman identified only as Jane Doe went to police on Feb. 11, 2015, and reported that she was extorted to send child pornography to Carnahan’s co-defendant Brandon Tyler Hill, who used various aliases including Steven Cross and Nick Wise. Under the Cross alias, Hill threatened to arrest Doe on child pornography charges if she did not cooperate, court records indicate.
Using the Cross alias, Hill forwarded 29 emails from rhiannon.carnahan@gmail.com to Doe, court records indicate. All but two of the videos depict men and women sexually assaulting prepubescent girls, the records indicate.
When Colorado Springs Detective Scott Schneider interviewed Hill, he said one of the videos depicted Carnahan molesting a 4-year-old girl, sometimes with sex toys, court records indicate.
When Schneider later interviewed Carnahan, she said she started corresponding with “Cross” because she thought he was “cute.” He started sending her child pornography images of infants and young children and coaxed her to do likewise. He asked her if she liked the images and she said she became aroused by them, the court documents say.
Still posing as Cross, Hill then threatened her, explaining that he was a police officers and that if she didn’t produce child pornography he would report her to authorities. Hill was sentenced in January to 30 years in prison for producing child pornography.
