Steen convicted

MIDLAND Monahans resident Alan Steen was convicted by a federal jury here on a charge of sexual exploitation of a child Wednesday afternoon for filming a minor who was tanning at the Electric Sun tanning salon in Odessa, assistant U.S. district attorney John Klassen said.

Steen was initially arrested and charged with producing an improper visual recording a week after police accused him of filming an adult on April 13 at the Electric Sun, 2730 N. Grandview Ave. Klassen said while police reviewed the camera they seized from Steen, they found a video recorded April 3 at the same salon of a teen client, leading to the federal charge.

According to a news release by United States Department of Justice spokesman Daryl Fields, sentencing will take place Jan. 6. Steen faces 15 to 30 years in federal prison for the charge.

Defense attorney Dan Cogdell said they planned to appeal the case after Steen’s sentencing in January. Cogdell said the video found on Steen’s camera was not sexually explicit and didn’t rise to the federal legal definitions that would have made the video warrant the sexual exploitation charge.

“While it was inappropriate and wrong, it wasn’t criminal under the statute,” Cogdell said.

Klassen said the jury took about three hours and 30 minutes to render the guilty verdict.

Klassen said two other cases are pending against Steen for improper visual recordings involving two adults, including the one claiming to have caught Steen in the act on April 11 and eventually led to his arrest. Those cases are being handled in Ector County.

The woman also filed a civil lawsuit. According to the woman’s civil petition, Steen was accused of using a handheld camera, colored to blend in with the tanning booth’s wall, that he held over the partition to film her while she was tanning in the nude.

According to Ector County district court records, Steen had an arraignment set on Oct. 13 for the two improper visual recording charges. Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland said he had been indicted on the two counts but since the penalties for the federal penalties would be more severe than anything the two state jail felony charges would have produced, they were deferring to the federal court’s case to be carried out first. Currently there are no court hearings set.

Electric Sun owner and manager Lisa Crosby said her customers have asked her several questions about Steen since his arrest and Steen’s conviction was a relief to her.

“It shows if you come here and commit a crime, a shoplifting—whatever it is, yes, we will fully prosecute, and the safety of my customers and my employees are what’s important,” Crosby said.