INDIANAPOLIS — A Bloomington man who recorded himself sexually assaulting a child and threw a witnesses phone in a toilet in an attempt to hide the evidence has been sentenced to three decades in federal prison.
According to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Indiana, Joshua Ray Vestal, 40, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation of a child.
Police said Vestal recorded himself forcing a 12-16-year-old child to engage in sexually explicit conduct with him on his phone on September 5, 2022. Vestal was in custody or care of the child at the time of the incident.
A witness would later discover the video on his phone and reportedly sent the images and video to their personal phone to preserve the evidence before confronting Vestal. When confronted, Vestal reportedly took the witness’ phone and threw it in a toilet before performing a factory reset on his own cell phone and removing the SIM card in an attempt to destroy the evidence.
However, the images had already been backed up to the cloud, allowing them to once again be accessed when the witness got a new cell phone. The witness took the evidence to police who then arrested Vestal.
“Everyone deserves a childhood free from sexual abuse, and it is up to us as adults to do all we can to protect children. This defendant not only sexually abused a vulnerable child entrusted in his care, he then attempted to conceal his heinous acts by destroying the evidence,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Zachary A. Myers said. “The serious sentence imposed in this case will ensure that children are protected from this predator for several decades to come. I commend the Bloomington Police Department, FBI, Indiana State Police, and state and federal prosecutors for stopping the abuse of this child, and preventing the abuse of others who may have fallen within his grasp in the future.”
Police said the case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice. In addition to his time behind bars, Vestal must pay $10,000 in restitution to the victim and will be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for life upon release. Vestal must also register as a sex offender wherever he lives, works, or attends school for the rest of his life.
