Wife who took husband’s phone and loaded child abuse images before shopping him to cops is spared jail
- Cherie Renee Bolton, 34, of Arkansas, was given six years’ probation on Monday
- Bolton pleaded guilty to possessing child porn and filing a false police report
- She claimed her husband attacked her after she caught him raping a 13-YO girl
- But police realised the images were downloaded a day after he kicked her out
- She downloaded the pics during a motel meth binge with a man she met online
- Along with the sentence, her name will be added to the sex offenders’ register
A woman from Arkansas who tried to frame her husband for child abuse and battery has been spared jail after claiming she was high on meth and mentally disturbed at the time.
Cherie Renee Bolton, 34, of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, was sentenced to six months probation on Monday for distributing or possessing child pornography and filing a false police report.
She will also have to register as a sex offender and pay around $2,000 in fines after making a deal with prosecutors to avoid jail time.
Cherie Renee Bolton, 34, of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, has been sentenced to six years’ probation for downloading child abuse images in a bid to frame her husband after they split up
Presiding judge Brad Karren said Bolton must serve the full six-year probation sentence.
Bolton reported her husband to police on May 24 2017, claiming he had beaten her after she caught him raping a 13-year-old girl.
The husband and the alleged victim, who have not been named by authorities, both denied the charges at the time.
Bolton showed detectives three images of child abuse on a phone to which she claimed her husband had access.
But officers smelled a rat after they realised the images were likely downloaded on May 23 that year, a day after Bolton’s husband had told her to leave their family home.
Alos suspicious was that the only injury she could show from the alleged attack was a slight bruise, and that she refused a medical examination despite claiming to be in severe pain.
Bolton claimed she went to a motel with a man she met on the Craigslist website, the day after her husband kicked her out, where she took meth and downloaded the child porn images
Bolton eventually admitted to police in December last year that she had downloaded the images herself out of anger at her husband for kicker her out and restricting access to her children.
She told them that after her husband threw her out, she met a man on classified adverts website Craigslist.
Bolton said they went to a motel in West Siloam Springs, Delaware County, Oklahoma, where they took ‘chemsex’ party drug methamphetamine sulphate, and that may have been where she downloaded the images.
She also sought to excuse her crimes by claiming she was having a manic episode.
Bolton could have faced ten years in jail for the offences, but was able to cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison.