A Carson City man appeared Thursday before a federal judge in Reno to face charges for allegedly using a hidden camera in a bathroom to produce child pornography.
Sean Heeran, special agent with Homeland Security based in Reno, filed a complaint charging that from April 2012 through July 31, 2013, Marcus Gabriel Henderson persuaded or coerced a minor to engage in “sexually explicit conduct,” videotaped it and mailed some of the video recordings through the U.S. Mail.
Agents say they found the video device hidden in Henderson’s bedroom along with a media card that contained 277 video clips taken in the shower and toilet area. The clips contained images of two females; agents said one of the girls was 13 at the time.
One sample described in the complaint said the child was nude in front of the shower, the front of her body visible to the camera before she got into the shower.
According to the complaint, Henderson admitted to investigators at the house on Thompson Street that he secretly recorded the victims and that the videos sexually aroused him.
The complaint says he told investigators he first used the camera in the bathroom during a vacation visit to his mother’s home here around Easter in 2012. He allegedly told them that when he returned to his South Dakota home, he sent some of his recordings to at least three people in exchange for child pornography.
He allegedly said he moved to Carson City in September 2012 and estimated he had made about 500 videos, each about one minute in length, since then.
His initial appearance before a magistrate was Thursday. He later will be arraigned on specific charges.
If tried and convicted, Henderson would face up to 30 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.