A Panama City man found guilty of 24 charges involving the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl was sentenced to 10 consecutive Life sentences Thursday, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
A 6-person jury deliberated about an hour Thursday before finding Harlin Richard Crowley, 36, guilty as charged on 3 counts of Sexual Battery on a Child under the Age of 12, 7 counts of Lewd or Lascivious Molestation, and 14 counts of Promoting Sexual Performance by a Child.
“This particular defendant was a prolific child abuser, had a prolific amount of child porn on his devices and his Google drive, and this was one of the more heinous cases that I’ve had occasion to prosecute,” Prosecutor Frank Sullivan said. “And I told (Circuit Court Judge Dustin Stephenson) that during sentencing and asked for a harsh sentence because of that, and he agreed and gave the defendant the 10 consecutive life sentences.”
On 14 other charges, Judge Stephenson sentenced Crowley to 15 years’ probation each, also to be served consecutively, or one after the other. The defendant was also designated as a Sexual Predator.
“I have a question,” the defendant said to Circuit Court Judge Dustin Stephenson after he imposed the sentence. “Does that mean 14 times 15 years on the probation?”
“Yes, that would be 210 years’ probation,” Stephenson replied. “But as a practical matter you will serve the rest of your life in prison. The court does determine this entire sentence is appropriate and no lesser sentence would be appropriate.”
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Judge Stephenson also heard from the victim prior to announcing his sentence.
“I was the victim of sexual assault at the age of 10 years old,” she told Judge Stephenson. “He not only hurt my body, but he also hurt my mind.
“I want (the defendant) to know I am going to forget all of this, I’m going to put all this behind me and I’m not going to waste another second thinking about you,” she continued. “Because you’re going to be far away from me where you cannot hurt me or another child.”
Sullivan called witnesses and presented evidence that in 2024, Google “flagged” what appeared to be sexually explicit content involving children being uploaded through an account associated with the defendant. Google contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which contacted the Panama City Police Department. The metadata provided by Google tied the content to the defendant via his email address and phone number. It included data showing when the pictures and videos were taken and an approximate location.
Panama City police went to the address that day and the defendant was taken into custody. Search warrants turned up a mountain of child pornography on various computers, phones and memory cards tied to the defendant.
“These charges involve 14 individual photos and video files out of hundreds the defendant had uploaded through the Google account that had been flagged,” Sullivan said. “When law enforcement arrested the defendant, they seized 4 laptops, 30 phones, 4 computer hard drives, 5 tablets and 9 SD (memory) cards.”
The evidence showed the defendant videotaped and took pictures of sexual acts between himself and the 10-year-old victim during 2021 and 2022.
The defendant testified that the videos were generated by someone using “artificial intelligence” to try and make it look like he was the person in the videos. He also claimed to be a “pop icon” in other countries.
Basford thanked Panama City police for their rapid response to the tip generated by Google, the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center, and the NCMEC.
For more information, contact Mike Cazalas at mike.cazalas@sa14.fl.gov, or call 850-381-7454.