Crawford County man going to prison for ten counts involving child pornography

A 49-year-old Crawford County man has been sentenced to ten years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections on the backside of a plea deal for an arrest in 2019 on numerous counts of Transporting or Distributing Explicit Material Depicting a Child.

Noel Wolters, of Alma , was charged with ten separate counts of possessing the child pornography in October of 2019 and was booked into the Crawford County Detention Center on Saturday after the plea deal earlier in the month.

Public defender Ryan Norris entered a not guilty plea to the crimes on behalf of Wolters on October 23 of last year and on December 18 the original jury trial was set for April 28 of this year.

Due to the Covid19 pandemic and court closures and precautions the trial was first postponed until June. The trial was eventually set to begin on September 18 but Wolters agreed to a plea deal and that hearing was held before Judge Mike Medlock on October 2.

In Arkansas, the first count of Transporting or Distributing Explicit Material Depicting a Child is a Class C felony, with each subsequent account upgraded to a Class B Felony. He was given ten years on the first count and another nine years for the remaining nine counts, but the sentences are to be served concurrently.

Wolters will be required to take sex offender classes while incarcerated and after serving his time in prison, he will be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.