A jury is recommending 1,760 years for a Covington man who is facing child porn charges.
Caine D. Carter, 30, was recommended by a jury to run consecutively the maximum sentence on each count for a total of 1,760 years in prison. Despite the jury’s sentence, Kentucky law limits Carter’s actual sentence to 20 years. Final, formal sentencing will be held before Kenton Circuit Judge Kate Molloy on Jan. 13, 2025, at 9 a.m. in Courtroom 7A of the Kenton County Justice Center.
These charges come after Covington police received a report from a local computer repair shop after one of their technicians’ found images of child sexual assault on a customer’s computer on April 18, 2023. Covington detectives Dave Lillich and Austin Ross responded to the shop and seized the computer, which they found belonged to Carter. Subsequent forensic examination of Carter’s computer identified over 1,000 saved images and videos depicting minors engaged in sexual performances across the computer’s multiple hard drives.
The trial began on Dec. 3 before Molloy. Over the three-day trial, the jury heard testimony from the technician and manager of the computer repair shop, Covington Police Computer Forensic Analyst Ron Trenkamp, and Covington Police Detectives Lillich and Ross. The jury also heard from Carter’s mother, who dropped off the computer for repair and identified it as Carter’s. The jury found the defendant guilty of all 177 counts.
Because Possession of Matter Portraying a Sexual Performance by a Minor is a Class D felony for children under 18 years old and a Class C felony for children under 12 years old, Kentucky law at the time of the offense capped an offender’s total sentence at 20 years. The “Safer Kentucky Act,” which went into effect on July 15, 2024, removed that 20-year cap for cases involving two or more child sex victims, so going forward, similar offenders now face up to 70 years in prison.