District Court Judge Randall Rehmeier called a Nebraska City man’s contact with 12- and 14-year-old girls via cell phone text messaging an “abuse of technology.”
Cole Rinne, 19, was sentenced Tuesday to two concurrent 18 to 30 months in prison for two counts attempt of child pornography. He was ordered to register as a sex offender.
In August Rinne was charged with two felony counts of child enticement and nine counts of attempted child pornography. In a plea agreement, all but two counts of attempted child pornography were dropped in exchange for Rinne’s guilty plea.
Court records indicate Rinne exchanged text messages with the girls asking they send him nude photographs of themselves to his cell phone. After they refused, Rinne posted a picture of one of the girl’s faces on a different body onto the Internet along with her phone number.
Otoe County Attorney David Partsch said the girl then received numerous text messages from unknown people.
In court Rinne apologized for his actions and admitted they “did get out of hand.”
“I wasn’t meaning to harm anyone,” he said.
Originally, Rinne denied sending the text messages. In court he said that one of the girls started sending him text messages after receiving his phone number from a common acquaintance.
Rehmeier said while there was no sexual contact between Rinne and the victims, the situation was indeed traumatic for the girls.
“(It) got way out of bounds,” Rehmeier said.
