Waco man who had secret room with child porn cache sentenced

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - A Waco man who had a secret room in his house where authorities found a cache of child pornography was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday.

Stevenson Randolph Carl, 53, a technician at a Waco vault company, pleaded guilty to five counts of possession of child pornography and asked 19th State District Judge Thomas West to grant his request for deferred probation.

After a sentencing hearing Friday at which the chairman of the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment testified that Carl is a low risk to reoffend, West rejected Car’s pleas for probation and sentenced him to four concurrent 10-year prison terms on Counts 1-4 and to two years in prison on Count 5.

The judge also ordered Count 5 to be served consecutively with Count 4, for a total of 12 years in prison. Carl, who must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, must be given credit for serving at least a quarter of his sentence before he can seek parole.

Carl, who testified he has been married 35 years, was arrested in April 2019 after investigators with the Texas Attorney General’s Office Child Exploitation Unit tracked an IP address to a computer belonging to Carl.

During a search of his home, investigators found multiple images and videos of child pornography on Carl’s computer, which was found in what prosecutor Tara Avants described as a “secret room behind a brick façade” with furniture placed in front of it.

Carl explained that the room, despite being behind a panel, was his man cave that everyone in his family knew was there because they had to go through that room to get to the garage.

“It wasn’t hidden. Everyone knew it was there. It’s like the hidden room at Poppa Rollo’s,” Carl said, referring to the popular Waco pizza restaurant.

He said when he built the room, he was not accessing child pornography. However, he admitted that he has been dealing with depression since his teen years when his mother became ill and started accessing pornography as a coping mechanism to deal with his depression, grief and anger issues.

He said in 2018, his search for regular porn as a way to escape his emotional “dead point” led him to a “posting board” web site that included images and videos of child pornography.

“I went down a rabbit hole I shouldn’t have gone down,” Carl testified.

Carl, questioned by his attorney Stan Schwieger, said he wasn’t making excuses for accessing child pornography because there is no excuse for that. He said he just wanted the judge to know why it happened in his case.

He said his arrest served as a wake-up call for him. He, his wife and kids have grown closer, and his troubles led him to Calvary Chapel Church, where he helps with the sound system and has gone on mission trips to Uvalde and Florida to help others devastated by crisis, Carl said.

“Being arrested led me to pray to God to stop me because I couldn’t do it on my own,” he said, adding he no longer has the desire to view child pornography. “I can’t say enough about how sorry I am for participating in something that caused harm to these children.”

Schwieger asked the judge to note the number of letters sent to the court as character references for Carl and the group of family and church members in court on Friday to support him.

Avants asked Carl during cross-examination if he ever thought of the exploited children when he was downloading videos featuring children as young as 6 in sex acts.

“You spoke of your family. Who is helping those children?” Avants asked.

Carl fumbled for an answer before saying, “I assume it’s the job of the criminal justice system.”

In other testimony, Aaron Pierce, a psychologist who has treated more than 4,000 sex offenders, said that while Carl shows signs of pedophilic disorder, his testing and evaluation of him shows he is a low risk to reoffend and low risk for violence.

Schwieger said Carl will appeal his sentence, declining additional comment.

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