A Billings man will spend two years in federal prison for videotaping himself having sex with his then-16-year-old girlfriend. The girlfriend was old enough to consent to sex but was not of legal age to agree to the visual recording of the act.

Daniel Scott Michaelis, 24, eventually pleaded guilty to an obscure law that requires producers of sex tapes to keep records of the participants' ages. The maximum penalty for violating the law is a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Michaelis case was thought to be the first time a violation of the statute has been charged in Montana, a federal prosecutor said earlier. The legal age for consent for visual recording is 18.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull sentenced Michaelis earlier this month. He also ordered forfeiture of the video camera.

Initially, federal prosecutors indicted Michaelis on charges of sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography. The exploitation charged carried a punishment of a minimum mandatory 15 years to 30 years in prison.

Michaelis initially pleaded guilty to possession of child porn and was facing a 37-month sentence under a plea agreement. He also would have had to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

He admitted making the sex tape sometime in November or December 2006, when he was 21 and his girlfriend was 16. Michaelis was living with the victim at the victim's mother's residence, and the mother was aware of the relationship at the time the sex tape was made, said Assistant Federal Defender Steve Babcock. Michaelis maintained that the sex and its taping were consensual. There was no evidence that the tape was ever distributed or posted on the Internet. And Michaelis denied ever making a copy of the tape or showing it to anybody.

Michaelis' sentencing was continued several times. Eventually, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia Hurd filed a superseding information charging Michaelis with the records violation. Michaelis withdrew his guilty plea to the possession count and admitted to the records violation. A new plea agreement called for a two-year sentence. Michaelis already has spent more than a year in custody.

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