Man sentenced in Internet sex case

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2004 | 9:43 a.m.

District Judge Donald Mosley on Tuesday sentenced an unemployed, legally blind man from Great Britain to four to 10 years in prison for using the Internet to lure children.

Marc Skewes, 41, had originally been charged with 31 felony counts, including using the Internet to lure children and possession of child pornography, but because he had no prior criminal record, Chief Deputy Christopher Laurent said entering a plea agreement with Skewes made sense.

Skewes pleaded guilty to four counts of using technology to lure children and one count of child pornography possession.

Although the Department of Parole and Probation recommended probation for Skewes, Mosley agreed with Laurent that probation for such an offense was "ridiculous" and sentenced Skewes to at least four years in prison.

Skewes' 33-year-old wife, Karen, previously pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge of using the Internet to lure children, a gross misdemeanor, and was sentenced to two years of probation by Mosley.

She initially faced a felony charge of using the Internet to lure children, which carried a one- to 10-year penalty.

As part of Karen Skewes' plea agreement she agreed to testify against her husband if his case went to trial.

Laurent said Karen Skewes, who worked two jobs, one as a circulation assistant for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and another at a Border's Bookstore, was the sole provider for the couple.

Authorities initially claimed the couple used the Internet to communicate with an FBI agent posing as a 14-year-old girl in a Yahoo chatroom between January and March.

They allege the pair initiated several sexual conversations with the agent and sent the agent obscene photographs of themselves via a Web camera.

But further investigation proved that Karen Skewes played a less active role in the alleged crime than her husband, Laurent said.

Laurent said Marc Skewes could have even used his wife's screen name on several occasions to initiate conversations with the agent and provided e-mailed pornographic pictures without her knowledge.

Karen Skewes said she never chatted with a teen girl on the Internet and denied sending pornographic pictures of herself over the Internet.

She said she'd met her husband, who is originally from England, on the Internet. The couple has been married for four years.