The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office provided more information on a case this week in which a 19-year-old was sentenced to a minimum of 8 years in prison for a charge related to sexting with a 16-year-old. Based on the limited information released by the Sheriff’s Office and reported throughout the region in the media, questions came pouring into the Sheriff’s Office from people concerned that the punishment given to 19-year-old Colton Levi Minard did not fit the crime. Sheriff Mike Lowell provided a straightforward response on Thursday, standing firmly by the prison sentence in this case. “…Information obtained through search warrants issued for his Facebook account and later for his cell phone confirmed that Minard was engaged in contacting numerous underage girls as young as 12 encouraging them to sneak out and meet him for sex,” explains Sheriff Lowell. “Sexual predators stalking their victims online is a serious problem nationwide…In the Minard case, our detectives discovered a dangerous sexual predator, went after him, and took him out of circulation. They did a great job.”
