DES MOINES, Iowa — The Polk County Attorney's Office announced Friday that a man who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and extortion has been sentenced to 55 years in prison.
36-year-old Matthew Akeem Butts of Des Moines entered an Alford plea of guilty to charges of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree and Extortion.
Prosecutors said that in multiple instances, Butts sexually abused minors in Polk and Story County that he had met on Snapchat.
An Alford plea admits the likelihood of conviction at trial while not formally filing a straightforward guilty plea.
Butts was sentenced to 45 years in prison in Story County earlier this month on two counts of third-degree sexual abuse as well as distributing drugs to a minor. Polk County added a sentence of 10 years in prison to the charges, which will run consecutively to the sentence in Story County.
Butts will also be on probation for the rest of his life and will also be placed on the sex offender registry, the Polk County Attorney's Office added.
Butts was accused of blackmailing a 14-year-old girl to continue to meet with her, threatening to release pictures and videos of her if she did not comply.
"You made my daughter feel unsafe. You made my daughter feel scared. You took advantage of my daughter when she was at a vulnerable age. And for a short time, you took my daughter away from me," the mother of the victim said.