DARLINGTON — A Darlington man charged in February 2020 with felonies related to allege sex with a Monroe teenager was sentenced to three years in prison and two years extended supervision in Lafayette County Circuit Court on July 1.

Steven Hartwell Cotter, 25, pled guilty to felony charges of exposing genitals or public area or intimate parts to a child, exposing child to harmful materials, and two count of possession of child pornography. A felony charge of second-degree sexual assault of a child was dismissed while sixteen additional felony counts of child enticement — sexual contact, using a computer to facilitate a sex crime, sexual intercourse with a child 16 or older by someone 19 or older, and exposing a child to harmful material, exposing genitals or public area or intimate parts to a child, four counts of child sexual exploitation by enticing a child to engage in conduct for recording or display, four counts of child sexual exploitation by producing or promoting recordings of a minor, and four counts of possession of child pornography were dismissed but read-in. 

The charges are for incidents between January 2016 and February 2019, according to court records.

According to the criminal complaint, a 16-year-old girl told police she had sexual intercourse with Cotter seven times, at his Darlington house and in a hotel room in Monroe, and that they drank vodka together.

She said they met on Facebook and had been chatting through another app. She provided police with messages in which they discussed having sex.

She said she had blocked him on social media because he was messaging her to the point of harassment. She said she was afraid of him because he said he would come to her house with guns and she knew he owned two guns.

Cotter initially denied sexual contact with the girl or giving her alcohol, but later confessed, according to court records. He told police he thought she was 19 and only later found out she was younger, but kept seeing her.

Another 15 counts were filed in April 2020 based on dozens of photos found on Cotter’s cell phone of underage girls as young as 14, according to the amended criminal complaint.

Cotter was also charged in Green County with sexual intercourse with a child 16 or older by someone 19 or older, child enticement — exposing genitals, pubic area or intimate parts to a child by someone under lifetime sex-offender supervision, and exposing genitals, pubic area or intimate parts to a child by someone under lifetime sex-offender supervision but those charges were dismissed on July 28.

Cotter was placed on one-year probation in September 2020 on a Grant County misdemeanor charge of invading privacy by using a surveillance device. A felony charge of capturing an intimate representation was dismissed, according to court records. The charges stem from an incident in December 2016.