A Newton man with a prior sex offense has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for a sex offender registry violation and sending obscene material to what he thought was a 14 year old girl. Newton Police say 58-year-old Francis Donald Heim Jr. reached out to a Des Moines County Officer posing as a minor on social media in mid May of last year. Over the following two and a half weeks, court documents state Heim used his cellphone to send obscene material to the undercover officer, and eventually asked for a sexually explicit photo of the minor. 

Heim pled guilty to three felony charges and was given consecutive prison sentences on Monday. District Court Judge Terry Rickers imposed a 25 year sentence for sexual exploitation of a minor, a class B felony, another five year term for second offense sex offender registry violation, a class D felony, and an additional two years for an aggravated misdemeanor charge of telephone dissemination of obscene material to a minor. Seven other counts of telephone dissemination of obscene material were dismissed, along with an additional count of sexual exploitation of a minor. 

Court records show Heim was on the Sex Offender Registry for a 1986 offense against a minor in Black Hawk County in northeast Iowa. Newton Police note Heim did not report the social media account he used to contact the undercover officer to the Registry, as required by law.