Registered sex offender sentenced to 10 years in prison in Bibb child exploitation case
Steven Mendenhall will serve 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of children and violating probation.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – A registered sex offender who investigators say shared child sexual abuse material while on probation has been sentenced to 20 years, according to the Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office.
55-year-old Steven Mendenhall pleaded guilty Wednesday in Bibb County Superior Court to two counts of sexual exploitation of children and violating his probation.
Mendenhall was sentenced to 20 years, with the first 10 years to serve in prison. The district attorney’s office says he must register as a sex offender and cannot access the internet.
According to prosecutors, Mendenhall previously pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual exploitation of children in Gwinnett County in 2016 and was sentenced to prison.
He pleaded guilty in Bibb County in 2019 to failing to register as a sex offender and received a 10-year probation sentence scheduled to continue through 2029.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit contacted Mendenhall’s community supervision officers in November 2024 while investigating peer-to-peer networks used to download and share child sexual abuse material.
Investigators traced a cellphone that shared two videos to an internet protocol address registered to Mendenhall, according to the district attorney’s office.
GBI agents and community supervision officers executed a search warrant December 3, 2024. Prosecutors say Mendenhall was living in a tent in Macon at the time.
Agents searched the tent and a bag Mendenhall was carrying, recovering five cellphones, a tablet and a laptop.
A forensic examination found more than 600 videos and more than 245 images containing child sexual abuse material across four devices, according to the district attorney’s office.
Investigators connected each device to Mendenhall through his email login or an internet protocol address.
“Every one of those videos and images is a real child who was abused, and every time a file like this is shared, that child is victimized again,” Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney Anita Howard said. “Mr. Mendenhall had already been to prison for this exact crime and was still under supervision when he went right back to it. That tells us everything we need to know about the danger he poses to children. I want to thank the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit and our Community Supervision Officers for working together to find him and stop him. Our office will continue to aggressively prosecute anyone who traffics in the abuse of children.”