Roland Vance Watson, 55, of Hickory, N.C., was sentenced today to 40
years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for producing child pornography and
committing a felony involving a minor while being required to register as a sex offender,
announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Watson was
also ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release and will be required to register as a sex
offender after he is released from prison.
Kyle Burns, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in North
Carolina and South Carolina, and Chief Reed Baer of the Hickory Police Department join U.S.
Attorney King in making today’s announcement.
The criminal investigation began in January 2023, after law enforcement received information
from a concerned adult that Watson had exchanged inappropriate text messages with a minor
female. According to filed court documents and today’s sentencing hearing, investigators
determined that, between August 2021 and February 2023, Watson had sexually abused three
minor females on multiple occasions. Three cell phones seized from Watson and Watson’s home
were forensically analyzed and multiple sexually explicit text messages were recovered between
Watson and one of the minors. In some of the texts, Watson induced the minor to send him
explicit images and videos of herself in exchange for gifts and candy. The phones also contained
child pornography produced by Watson that depicted Watson sexually abusing the minors and
other sexually explicit images and videos featuring the minors in various states of undress.
According to court records, in 1991, Watson was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually
assaulting a 15-year-old girl in New Jersey. As part of Watson’s sentence, he was ordered to
register with the Sex Offender Registry Board in any state or jurisdiction where he worked or
resided. Court documents show that after Watson moved to North Carolina, he failed to register
as a sex offender.
Watson will remain in federal custody pending placement by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The investigation was conducted by HSI and the Hickory Police Department.
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