A Maidsville man accused of filming juvenile girls through a peephole in his bathroom wall will face a grand jury on that charge.
Oliver Matheny, 45, had a preliminary hearing on that charge, had his home confinement revoked and was sentenced to 2 to 10 years in prison in two previous cases during a series of hearings on Thursday.
Matheny was charged with filming minors in sexually explicit conduct by the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department on Nov. 25.
Magistrate Tim Pocius found probable cause and sent that case to circuit court, where it will be presented to a grand jury.
Detective J. Wilhelm testified at Thursday’s preliminary hearing and said the investigation into Matheny was triggered when a woman brought an SD card with 16 videos on it to the sheriff’s department.
The investigation showed the videos were taken through a peephole connecting Matheny’s bedroom and a bathroom, where seven juvenile girls were filmed, Wilhelm testified. The oldest victims are now 18, while some are still underage and all were friends of a juvenile living or staying in the house. Wilhelm said some of the videos could be considered explicit.
Matheny’s face and voice appear in some of the videos and some of them were “edited to his liking,” Wilhelm testified.
Under West Virginia law, video length is used to determine the number of child pornography images it counts as and the original videos totaled about 6,000 images. Additional SD cards and CDs with videos were also found during a search of Matheny’s home, but are not included in that number, Wilhelm said.
Earlier Thursday, in a sentencing hearing for convictions of third-offense domestic battery and failure to register as a sex offender, Assistant Prosecutor Gabrielle Mucciola said the prosecutor’s office is working with federal agencies due to the severity of the case.
Circuit Judge Debra Scudiere sentenced Matheny to serve one to five years on both the domestic battery and failure to register charge — the statutory sentence for each.
Matheny’s attorney, Jennifer Yost, asked Scudiere not to place great weight on the pending charges as they are only allegations and Matheny has not been found guilty.
Scudiere said she did not place heavy weight on the pending child porn charges but that present charges were sufficient to justify the sentences running consecutively rather than concurrently.
Assistant Prosecutor Rob Zak said Matheny deserved no leniency nor benefit of the doubt due to his 30-year criminal history.
Zak noted Matheny was given “opportunity after opportunity” through alternative sentencing and short sentences.
Matheny also admitted to a home confinement violation on Thursday. He was serving six months on home confinement for a DUI. After formally revoking his home confinement, Pocius sentenced Matheny to six months in jail with credit for the 95 days he spent on home confinement.
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