Collins sent to prison for possession of child pornography

BRANCH COUNTY — Matthew Collins, 46, will return to prison for five to 15 years after pleading no contest in May to aggravated possession and aggravated distribution of child sexually abusive material.

Circuit Judge Bill O'Grady sentenced him Monday to three to 10 consecutive years for the use of a computer in the commission of a crime.

The judge told Collins, "You are a predator who deserves to be in prison for a very long time."

O'Grady sentenced Collins in 2017 to 58 months to 15 years for possession of child pornography after police discovered pictures of an underage girlfriend on his phone.

"I don't know how someone like you should even be on parole," O'Grady told Collins.

The online service X, formerly Twitter, tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of an account with downloaded child pornography.

The Michigan State Police Cyber Crime unit tracked the account to Collins.

Troopers found Collins' account traded several sexual pictures and videos of underage children.

Collins denied possession of the pictures to Det. Specialist Kyle Bowers but admitted in an interview that he viewed the images on his phone and then deleted them, according to police reports.

Collins told the trooper he did not know how they ended up on his phone.

Also discovered from the account were messages from Collins to others discussing his intentions to allegedly assault young girls.

Collins tried to deny the statements O'Grady read from files obtained from X.

Investigators stated, "At this time there is no evidence to show that a sexual assault occurred."

In 2017, O'Grady called Collins "a serial felon" with almost a dozen convictions beginning in 1998. Asked by the judge how he turned from drug, theft, and assault crimes to pornography, Collins blames files that "popped up" as he scanned the internet.

Prior storyCollins gets more prison for nude photos

In his prior conviction, Collins was on parole in 2016 when police went to the Cadet Motel in Coldwater looking for an underage runaway. The girl had just turned 16, but police found earlier nude photos of her on Collins' phone.

Collins was on parole at the time for felonious assault from a Calhoun County 2007 conviction.

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— Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com