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Mike Davis pleads guilty to child pornography charges; sentencing set for March

As part of his guilty plea, Davis will have to register as a sex offender.

COLUMBUS (WBNS) - Former 10TV meteorologist Mike Davis has pleaded guilty to all charges against him involving child pornography.

Davis appeared in court Thursday morning to change his plea on four counts of pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor.

Davis said nothing to reporters as he entered the courtroom Thursday morning. He did respond to a series of questions by Judge Karen Phipps – most of which centered around if he understood the charges that he was pleading guilty to.

Davis answered: “I do.”

As part of his guilty plea, Davis will have to register as a sex offender.

His attorney, Terry Sherman, filed a motion Friday acknowledging that his client planned to plead guilty to all four charges of pandering sexually-oriented material involving a minor.

Sherman is hoping his client can avoid a lengthy prison stay and gain acceptance to a community-based correctional facility near Cincinnati that includes a sex offender treatment program.

It’s not clear if Mike Davis will go to prison – that decision will be made by Judge Karen Phipps.

In his recent motion, Sherman pointed to other similar cases in Franklin County that did not result in a prison stay.

But prosecutors – and Judge Phipps pointed out – that second-degree felony cases often presume a prison sentence.

Davis could spend between 25 to 29.5 years in prison on the charges.

Prosecutors allege that he downloaded 16,000 child pornography images and emailed them to himself.

Davis was arrested on Sept. 5 after the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) received tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a Yahoo! Inc. account associated with Davis’ email address had uploaded more than 15,000 images of suspected child pornography using that email address.

According to the affidavit in support of the search warrant, “the complaint described the images as being female children ranging in the age from pre-teen to young teenager.”

The indictment alleges that Davis downloaded and emailed to himself videos and images depicting young children engaging in sexual activity.

According to the affidavit, Davis stated he would email the images to himself to view on other devices.

He had been “regularly e-mailing” images to himself in “small batches” since December of 2012, according to the affidavit.

Mike Davis said nothing to a 10TV reporter who questioned him as he left the courthouse Thursday morning.

Davis is scheduled for sentencing on March 25.

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