Kentucky man pleads guilty to making child-porn videos with young victim

A Mercer County man faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Thursday to a charge of making child-porn videos with a 7-year-old child.

Rafael W. Poynter, 45, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of production of visual depictions involving a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

A second, identical charge against Poynter will be dismissed at sentencing. The penalty for the remaining charge is 15 to 30 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release of between five years and life.

Poynter and Anastasia C. Vandergriff were arrested in January 2017 after Mercer County deputies executed a search warrant at a house on Shakertown Road.

An informant had told deputies that she had seen a video on Poynter’s cell phone depicting Vandergriff performing a sex act on a 7-year-old boy, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court.

When deputies arrived at the Shakertown Road address, Poynter answered the door and Vandergriff was inside. Deputies asked Poynter to unlock his phone but Poynter provided an incorrect password. Deputies removed the memory card from the phone, and found videos of Vandergriff performing sex acts on the 7-year-old while Poynter recorded them, the plea agreement said.

Seven videos were found in an active file and an eighth was found in a deleted file, the plea agreement said.

Poynter and Vandergriff were initially arrested and indicted on multiple state charges, including sodomy, promoting the sex performance of a minor under 16 years old, and use of a minor in a sex performance.

Those state charges were dismissed after a federal grand jury indicted Poynter and Vandergriff in August 2018.

The case against Vandergriff, 37, is still pending in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Joseph M. Hood scheduled sentencing for May 28 in Lexington.

This story was originally published February 21, 2019 at 12:33 PM.