A Floyd County man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on federal child pornography charges; Judge Harold L. Murphy handed down the sentence in U.S. District Court last week, against Stephen Michael Hipple.

Hipple was arrested in the wake of a joint investigation by Floyd County Police and the FBI; investigators said he used his phone to take explicit pictures of a child, under the age of ten, and then shared those photos; he also had child pornography on his computer and received pictures from other individuals.

He pled guilty in Floyd County Superior Court late last year (2014) and he was sentenced to a term of 25 years in prison. The latest sentence will run concurrent to his state sentence.

Following his release Hipple will be on federal supervised release for the rest of his life.

(WRGA/www.wrgarome.com)