Gardnerville man sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor

Stephan L. DeGraffenreid will be spending the next 15 years in prison after being sentenced Wednesday by United States District Judge Howard D. McKibben.

DeGraffenreid plead guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor in September. He was sentenced to the minimum number of years for those charges.

The 27-year-old Gardnerville, Nevada man was an employee at Heavenly Mountain Resort when an iPod belonging to him was found at the children's ski school. Child pornography was found on the device and law enforcement became involved. During the execution of a search warrant at DeGraffenreid’s residence, officers with the Northern Nevada Online Child Exploitation Task Force located a thumb drive that contained explicit images of children in a childcare facility restroom in Gardnerville. DeGraffenreid admitted to taking the sexually explicit photos of the children found on the thumb drive. No photos of children at Heavenly were found on DeGraffenreid's devices.

"We terminated Mr. DeGraffenreid from the Heavenly Ski Resort immediately upon learning of the investigation by the authorities," Kevin Cooper, Senior Communications Manager for Heavenly said at the time of DeGraffenreid's arrest, citing the activity was abhorrent to everything the South Shore resort stands for.

The case was investigated by the Northern Nevada Child Exploitation Task Force, which is comprised of members of the FBI, the Reno Police Department, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, and the Nevada Attorney General’s Office. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office also assisted with the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon M. Bryant prosecuted the case.

Judge McKibben also sentenced DeGraffenreid to lifetime supervised release.