BENTONVILLE (KFSM) — A Bella Vista man was sentenced Monday (July 16) to 40 years in prison for possessing more than a thousand files of child pornography.
Michael Preston Withers, 57, pleaded guilty in Benton County Circuit Court to 20 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing child pornography.
Benton County sheriff’s deputies arrested Withers in January 2017 after tracing a sexually explicit image of a child to his home on Rame Lane.
Investigators later searched Withers’ home and seized his laptop, which held nearly 1,500 pornographic images and videos of children.
Withers will have to register as a sex offender and serve a seven-year suspended sentence after he’s released from the state Department of Correction.
