A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for using a cellphone to record short videos of girls showering or getting dressed in their bedrooms.
Kevin J. Petroske, 36, of Hibbing, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis on numerous child pornography charges. A jury convicted him in August after a three-day trial.
Petroske's defense had argued in a presentence court filing for a 15-year term, pointing out that "there was no posing of the minors, no sexual, physical or other contact between Mr. Petroske and any of them, and no distribution of the videos." His attorney, Craig Hunter, declined to comment about the sentence his client received.
Law enforcement first caught onto Petroske in October 2015 when it was alerted to a man peering into the windows of a home in Hibbing, leading to his arrest.
Petroske has prior convictions in Stearns County for felony stalking and an open investigation in Benton County for allegedly possessing child pornography.
Authorities seized a laptop from Petroske's home that contained hundreds of videos and images of child pornography, according to the U.S. attorney's office. They were recorded between October 2011 and September 2015.
According to charges, Petroske used a cellphone to record short videos, between 17 seconds and 2{ minutes, of young girls showering or getting dressed in their bedrooms. He could often be heard making sexual comments in the recordings while masturbating. His victims were either 14 or 16 years old.
