A man from Belmont County has admitted to crimes of child exploitation that include the sexual assault of minors and the possession of child pornography. Dennis Stopar, a 65-year-old resident of Flushing, Ohio, entered a guilty plea in U.S. District Court today, agreeing to a suggested prison sentence that spans 30 to 60 years, as delineated in the plea agreement.
The unsettling revelations, gleaned from court records, suggest Stopar sexually abused several underage females, coerced a male minor into sexual acts with another child, and generated hundreds of abusive images and videos—a historical pattern now ruptured by law. Accused of these heinous crimes, according to a recent statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Stopar's conviction is not his first encounter with the law, his criminal history marred by a sex offense conviction of rape against a child.
Technology, both an aide-de-camp to clandestine horrors and the herald of Stopar’s undoing, came as a cyber tipline from Dropbox, Inc. to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in December 2023. It was this that alerted Dropbox to child pornography uploads and subsequently led them to trace the offending IP address to Stopar's residence within a day’s work.
With the arrival of Belmont County Sheriff's Office deputies on December 28 to execute a local search warrant, they did not find Stopar’s electronic devices hiding anywhere nor evidence within easy reach, as they were seized from a trailer parked on the property tied to the IP. Federal search warrants later processed these devices, and charges were pronounced federally in April 2024. The announcement of the guilty plea was made by United States Attorney Kenneth L. Parker, along with FBI Special Agent in Charge Elena Iatarola, Cincinnati Division, and Belmont County Sheriff David L. Lucas, as detailed in the statement.
Assistant United States Attorneys Emily Czerniejewski and Jennifer M. Rausch represented the government in what marked a severe and necessary response to the atrocity of acts committed by Stopar, and they did justice. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson was the presiding authority over the plea entered today that may see Stopar behind bars for his remaining years, his liberty forfeited in the balance of justice.
