SPARTANBURG, S.C. — William Steven Wooten, a 46-year-old man who passed himself off as a decorated combat veteran, will spend 109 months in federal prison following an FBI investigation that the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office assisted.
Federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina handled the case. Wooten was found guilty at a February federal trial on child sexual abuse material charges.
After his release he faces 20 years of court-ordered supervision, and parole is not available in the federal system.
Investigators said Wooten carried a phony DD-214, the form that documents a discharge from the military, and claimed he had earned a Purple Heart. He had never served.
He tried to use the fake record to land a job and to win the trust of a single mother with young children, according to federal officials.
A search of his phone turned up the forged discharge form and 203 images of child sexual abuse. A South Carolina court had already convicted him of criminal sexual conduct with a minor eight months before agents made that discovery. Roughly two weeks ahead of the February trial, Wooten pleaded guilty to holding the false military document.
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Filed under: Spartanburg SC Crime News
