A jury found former 90 Day Fiancé star Michael Eloshway guilty of two child pornography counts on Wednesday, July 24.
Eloshway, 42, will remain free on bond until his October 29 sentencing. He reportedly faces a possible sentence of 17 years and five months to 20 years in prison.
Jurors deliberated for two hours after the three-day trial concluded in a Cleveland federal court. His mother broke down in tears when U.S. District Judge Patricia Gaughan read the verdict while Eloshway showed “little reaction,” according to Cleveland.com.
Eloshway was first indicted on child pornography charges in June 2023. Authorities accused him of “knowingly receiving and distributing … depictions of real minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct” between February 2022 and March 2023, according to court documents viewed by In Touch. The indictment also stated that at least one image was of a prepubescent minor under age 12.
During the trial, prosecutors said that the FBI identified Eloshway in 2022 after discovering 65,000 images of child pornography had been downloaded to his IP address. Agents raided his home in 2023 and found 8,000 images of child pornography on his computer.
“He’s addicted to pornography and he had 8,000 child pornography files on his computer,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Dangelo said during closing arguments. “He knew they were there.”
Eloshway also gave a signed statement admitting to downloading pornography via BitTorrent and that he searched “teen porn” to find and download images of models 17 years and younger.
“His internet search requests were generic,” Eloshway’s attorney Jay Milano argued in a filing on June 18. “The contraband came as unindexed parts of ‘torrents/floods’ of data. The contraband was delivered among a small number [of] ‘torrents/floods’ over time. Those torrent/floods were but a small percentage of total searches over the same period. When discovered, he deleted them.”
Eloshway testified in his own defense, claiming he only ever sought adult pornography and that he came across child pornography three times while using BitTorrent, immediately deleting the files.
“I can’t describe how much I hated seeing those images,” he said.
Eloshway first rose to fame in 2014 when he appeared on the first season of TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé with his now-wife, Aziza Eloshway. The two welcomed their first child, Olivia, in 2019.
“My only concern was being able to see my daughter again,” Michael said in his testimony, claiming agents pressured him into signing the confession. “It was a crazy day, my heart was still racing, and I was under investigation for something I never meant to do. But I was worried I would never see my daughter again.”
Ahead of the jury’s ruling, the former reality star rejected a plea deal in June that offered a shorter sentencing range. If the deal was accepted, Michael would have faced between 12 years and four months and 15 years and seven months in prison.
