Christopher Michael Cooper, who posted child pornography on social media a month after receiving a fully suspended sentence after being arrested as part of an undercover law enforcement sex sting, has been sentenced to prison.
In 2015, Missoula District Court Judge Karen Townsend had given Cooper a 25-year sentence, all suspended, for a felony count of sexual abuse of children after he was one of seven people arrested in a 2013 undercover sex-sting operation conducted in Missoula. In that incident Cooper, who had come to town from Washington, went to a home believing he would be meeting a 12-year-old girl for sex, but he found only law enforcement officers who had set up the online post, waiting for him.
In April 2015, a month after receiving the suspended sentence, Cooper was arrested and charged with posting pornographic images of children on multiple Twitter accounts.
In January, without a plea agreement, Cooper pleaded guilty to violating the terms of his probation from the sex sting sentence and to eight new felony charges from his April 2015 arrest.
In Missoula County District Court on Monday, Townsend sentenced him to 30 years in the Montana State Prison with 15 years suspended for the eight new charges of sexual abuse of children. She also revoked his suspended sentence from the previous case and reimposed it as 25 years in prison with 10 suspended.
He will receive credit for 285 days already served in custody.
