Former Cottage Grove youth pastor sentenced to more than 12 years for child porn

A former Minnesota youth pastor who admitted to collecting troves of child pornography and engaging in online chatter with a Finnish man he knew abused young children overseas was sentenced last week to more than a dozen years in federal prison.

William Leonard Helker, 47, of Pine City, pleaded guilty in March to one count of distributing child pornography. According to documents filed in court, Helker's collection included images with superimposed photos of some members of his congregation at All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, Minn.

U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz sentenced Helker to 12 ½ years in federal prison to be followed by 15 years of supervised release. Helker was arrested last October after state and federal authorities received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that a Minnesota man had exchanged child pornography with a person in Finland. The NCMEC listed the tip as a "Priority 1" because the children were assessed as being in danger.

Shortly before Helker's arrest, European law enforcement identified the Finnish man and rescued his victims, who ranged from 2 to 12 years old. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Buzicky, in court filings, wrote that authorities found correspondence between Helker and a Finnish suspect who was actively abusing several young children and using them to produce child pornography. Helker encouraged and "sometimes suggested" forms of abuse, Buzicky said.

"Helker is a dangerous child predator who disguised himself as a youth pastor. Instead of providing guidance to young people, he used his position as a trusted leader to prey upon them," Buzicky said in a statement Monday. "This sentence recognizes the disturbing nature of Helker's actions and his appalling betrayal of community trust."

Helker's attorneys, Marsh Halberg and Lee Orwig, asked Schiltz to depart from sentencing guidelines and send Helker to prison for no more than eight years, given the "immediate acceptance of his wrongdoing." They argued that he had been a law-abiding citizen and had no indications of inappropriate interactions with children before the arrest. During a psychosexual evaluation, his attorneys wrote, Helker disclosed an addiction to pornography that spiraled following his divorce but said he did not first access child porn until 2016.

In asking for a stronger sentence, Buzicky cited one victim's parents who said Helker sometimes reserved the front-row pew for them, "ostensibly out of concern for a family member with a disability."

"Now, they realize, Helker simply wanted to be closer to [their child] during church," Buzicky wrote.

Stephen Montemayor • 612-673-1755

Twitter: @smontemayor