Kentucky man who shocked girls with stun gun, sexually abused them gets 100-year sentence
A Kentucky man who sexually abused three girls and used a stun gun to shock them at an isolated cabin has been sentenced to 100 years in federal prison.
Ronald Stinespring, 51, of Elliott County was sentenced Monday after he pleaded guilty to three charges of using minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct, one count of possessing material containing sexually explicit images of minors, and one count of obstruction of justice, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning recommended that Stinespring be assigned to the mental facility at a prison in North Carolina, according to court records.
Bunning also ordered Stinespring to pay a total of $827,073 in restitution to the three victims, though his lawyer, Michael J. Curtis, said in one motion that Stinespring has no money.
Bunning sentenced Stinespring Monday.
“The victims in this case suffered unspeakable mental, physical, and sexual abuse,” Shier said in a news release. “Three young people were extensively and callously abused, over the course of years. While his conduct was truly appalling, fortunately, the sentence he must now serve is also noteworthy.”
The case against Stinespring started in May 2019 when a 14-year-old girl walked to a house in Elliott County and told the homeowner she was trying to get in touch with her mother in Ohio, according to the court record. The homeowner called police.
The girl, who was dirty and appeared malnourished, told police she and her sisters, ages 9 and 18, had been living with Stinespring for about two years. The girls’ mother had lost custody of them and Stinespring had adopted them.
The girl said Stinespring had punished her a variety of ways, including shocking her with a stun gun, tying her up, pouring water over her and making her sit on a rock for an hour, according to the court record.
The girl said her sisters had undergone similar abuse.
When Kentucky State Police went to investigate, they found Stinespring lived in a makeshift cabin in the woods, with minimal lighting and a partial wood floor.
Police found pregnancy tests, birth control pills and a fetal doppler in the cabin, according to the news release.
A prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Lauren Melton, said in one court document that Stinespring’s isolation and physical and mental abuse of the girls was a way to coerce them into taking part in sexually explicit conduct so he could make visual images.
While he was in jail, Stinespring sent a coded letter to the wife of his cellmate to be delivered to one of the girls in an effort to get her to lie to protect him, according to court records.
Among other things, he asked the girl to say she and one of her sisters downloaded child pornography that was found on Stinespring’s devices, according to the court record.
State police and the FBI investigated the case, which was prosecuted as part of an initiative called Project Safe Childhood aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse.
