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COVINGTON – J. Collin Sims, Interim District Attorney, reports that Benjamin Edward Evers, age 40, from Covington, pled guilty today to 200 counts of child pornography. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by District Judge William H. Burris.

In response to the defendant’s sentence, Mr. Sims stated, “Prior to the extensive changes in Louisiana’s criminal laws enacted in 2017, commonly referred to as ‘Criminal Justice Reform,’ this sex offender would have been facing a minimum of 26 years in prison on these charges due to his prior convictions for distribution of controlled dangerous substances and felony DWI.

This case is but one example of how these ‘reforms’ frequently frustrate the efforts of law enforcement and the district attorney’s office to hold child predators appropriately accountable and reduce the sexual exploitation of children.”

In September of 2021, Special Agent April Lucia with the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation received multiple cyber tip reports from The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that indicated that the defendant had uploaded images later determined to be child porn to a cloud-based storage service.

S.A. Lucia obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s Covington residence and executed the warrant in February 2022. As a result of the search warrant, more than 200 images and videos of prepubescent children being vaginally and orally raped were found on the defendant’s cell phone.  During a police audio-recorded interview, the defendant admitted to having viewed child porn because he was “curious.

Assistant District Attorney Fred Treschwig prosecuted the case.