Rogersville man sentenced to 30 years in prison for fraud and child sex crimes

A Rogersville man was sentenced in federal court after being convicted for 3 separate crimes, including child sexual exploitation, investment fraud and illegal gun possession.
57-year-old Roy G. Harris, Junior was arrested following an investigation into an investment fraud scheme between June 2014 and May 2017 in which he defrauded individuals of nearly a million dollars under the guise of investing in companies that he owned. He also used some of the money for his personal benefit. After pleading guilty to wire fraud, Harris was found in possession of 19 guns at his residence. During the investigation into the firearms offenses, law enforcement located images and videos of child pornography on Harris’s iPhones.
This week Harris was sentenced to a total of 30 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Harris to pay more than $809-thousand-dollars in restitution to the victims of his wire fraud scheme and $5,000 to the victim of his child sexual exploitation and child pornography crimes. According to federal court documents, while awaiting trial on his firearms and sexual exploitation charges, Harris tried to hire at least one person to murder several witnesses related to the firearms charges, during video calls, from the Greene County Jail.