Charleston man receives 25 year prison sentence in child porn case

On Friday Judge Margaret B. Seymour sentenced Scott Ashley Cascone of Charleston to 25 years in federal prison for production of child pornography.

Cascone, 48, will be under a lifetime term of court-ordered supervision at the end of his prison term. He will also be required to pay $27,500 in restitution.

Through search warrants, authorities found “numerous images and videos of child pornography” at his home and in his Dropbox account, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina.

Federal law enforcement became aware of Cascone in 2016 when a Homeland Security investigator working undercover in a chatroom witnessed an individual with the username “unclebaddy” post a video containing child pornography. The IP address associated with the user led law enforcement to Cascone’s residence.

Around the same time, investigators learned that Cascone was being investigated by the West Virginia State Police for having “online sexual communications” with a 14-year-old girl. Federal agents accuse Cascone of convincing the girl to send him sexually explicit pictures of herself, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On August 9, 2019, Cascone pleaded guilty to one count of production of child pornography according to court records. The charge carries a minimum penalty of 15 years in prison. The case was prosecuted by assistant U.S. Attorney Dean Secor.

In requesting a sentence of 15 years, his defense attorney Jerry Theos emphasized that Cascone had completed a comprehensive substance abuse program while incarcerated and was considered by a forensic psychologist to be at low risk of re-offending, according to court records.

Theos emphasized Cascone was not diagnosed with Pedophilic Disorder and he went “above and beyond” in assisting other inmates enrolled in the Charleston detention center’s drug and alcohol treatment program.