Sex offender facing child pornography charges in Las Vegas
A sex offender who attempted to commit lewd acts against a child he was babysitting in 2003 is now facing child pornography charges in the Las Vegas Valley.
William Spahr, 38, was arrested by Las Vegas police on June 17, then charged in Las Vegas Justice Court Tuesday with two counts of possession of visual pornography of a person under 16. An arrest report in the case indicates the charges stem from an alert Google sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in September 2020 indicating someone had uploaded at least 30 graphic images of child pornography to a Google Drive account.
The information was then forwarded to Las Vegas police for investigation.
Police said they served search warrants in the case and identified Spahr as the owner of the account. In September 2021, police said they interviewed Spahr and collected his phone, then obtained a search warrant for the device that also turned up multiple images of child pornography.
However, police said they could not immediately locate Spahr until he was arrested a week ago by police in a sweep called a sex offender verification operation.
“It should be noted that William Spahr has a notable history of sexually motivated crimes in his past,” police said in his arrest report.
Court records show he was convicted in Clark County in 2003 of attempted lewdness with a child under 14 and sentenced to 24 to 72 months in prison. Police said in his most recent arrest report that the prior conviction stemmed from Spahr committing crimes against a young child he was babysitting when Spahr was approximately 19-years-old.
Spahr, police said, also has prior arrests for sex offender failure to change address and violation of lifetime supervision. A preliminary hearing in the child pornography case is scheduled for July 6.
He remained in custody at the Clark County Detention Center Friday.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.