Man, 24, gets 40 years for sexually assaulting a child at his Fort Worth home

A 24-year-old man who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 6-year-old girl and taking cellphone video of the assault was sentenced Tuesday to a total of 40 years in federal prison.

Mark Anthony Pape, who has a San Marcos address and lived in Fort Worth at the time of the offense, pleaded guilty to two charges in October.

He was already a registered sex offender, having been arrested as a juvenile in 2006 in Guadalupe County for aggravated sexual assault of a 4-year-old girl, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records. He was sentenced to three years in the Texas Youth Commission.

Federal prosecutor Aisha Saleem asked U.S. District Judge Terry Means to sentence Pape to the maximum penalty allowed by statute because Pape “could still be a threat to children” once he is released.

“There are allegations that he also molested other children,” Saleem said. “He is a predator. The defendant has exhibited a weakness for children.”

Means agreed, sentencing Pape to 30 years for production and possession of child pornography and a mandatory 10 years for committing the offense as a registered sex offender. Means ordered the sentences to be served consecutively.

According to the Tarrant County district clerk’s online files, Pape also faces state charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and indecency with a child. It could not be learned Tuesday what Tarrant County prosecutors plan to do about those charges.

Federal agents were alerted to the case on Feb. 11, 2014, by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which had received a tip from Google that someone had uploaded child pornography to the Internet.

A technician determined that the user was in the Fort Worth area, according to federal court documents. The information was forwarded to the Dallas Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The user was traced to a house in the 800 block of Churchill Road. Dallas Detective Greg Dugger determined that Pape lived there with his father and had used his father's name to obtain a phone and Internet service.

On April 9, Fort Worth police Detective Domingo Martinez seized computer items and a cellphone. The phone contained images and videos of Pape sexually assaulting the girl, according to court documents.

Pape registered as a sex offender in Brownwood on Sept. 19, 2008, according to DPS records.

The Fort Worth Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations collaborated to solve this case.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Man, 24, gets 40 years for sexually assaulting a child at his Fort Worth home."