KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Jefferson City woman will spend almost 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography and attempting to distribute it.
Shana Coffey, 42, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Knoxville by Judge Katherine A. Crytzer.
Coffey entered a plea agreement last year with federal prosecutors.
Crytzer sentenced Coffey to 262 months in prison, which amounts to nearly 22 years.
According to court records, an undercover law enforcement officer encountered Coffey in June 2020 in a chat room where users posted images of child sexual abuse and child porn.
Coffey sent the undercover officer a nude photo of an underage female and several videos of a man sexually abusing a child, records state. She "produced" the nude photo in April 2020 but did not produce the videos, records state.
Defense attorney Jeff Whitt told the court in a sentencing memo that his client had endured molestation as a child by a family member who eventually was convicted "of other rapes he had committed."
She's been held in jail since July 2020. She got hundreds of hours of counseling to provide her "with a path to recovery and forgiveness," defense records state.