Great Falls man sentenced to more than 21 years for sexually exploiting child

HELENA—A Great Falls man was sentenced to 21 years and eight months in prison and a lifetime of supervised release today after he admitted to taking sexually explicit photographs of a minor, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.

Virgil Allen Wolfe, 54, pleaded guilty in May 2019 to sexual exploitation of a child.

Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell presided.

The prosecution said in court records that law enforcement had received a report that Wolfe used a camera to take photographs of the victim in the nude and then uploaded them to his computer. The victim was younger than 12 years of age.

Law enforcement with Homeland Security Investigations and the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at Wolfe’s residence in June 2017 and seized computers, a phone and a digital camera. A forensic analysis of the devices found child pornography images on a computer and on a memory card inside the camera. The images were taken in 2008 and 2009.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bartleson prosecuted the case, which was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office.