Lawrence man gets 57 years in child porn case

By Lilly Adkins

BSN Associate Editor

ASHLAND — A Lawrence County man was sentenced last week to 57 years in prison by U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning for sex offenses involving a minor.

Dale Allen Fraley, 49, was convicted in May 2021 of five counts of production, four counts of receipt, one count of distribution of child pornography, and one count of possession of a matter containing visual depictions of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky said that evidence at trial showed that Fraley “used various online ‘personas’ to induce, persuade, or coerce minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct, for the purpose of producing visual depictions of that conduct.”

“Fraley, using the online ‘personas,’ would threaten minor females to engage in various sexual acts and record that activity, or send the images to him ‘live,’ via Skype or other applications. He also persuaded the minors to come to his home, sometimes at the behest of the ‘personas,’ to get ‘sexual experience’ with Dale Fraley as the teacher. Fraley would sometimes record the sexual activity between himself and the minors at his home, or record the minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.”

Under federal law, Fraley must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for life, the release said.