People v. Simpson.
2026 COA 67. No. 24CA1732. Child Abuse—Obscenity—Promotion of Obscenity to a Minor.
September 3, 2026
The jury heard evidence that would support findings that Simpson’s husband, Rothbarth, sexually abused her daughter (his stepdaughter), M.S., when she was between 8 and 12 years old. This abuse included Rothbarth showing M.S. “daddy-daughter” pornography, which Simpson allowed M.S. to watch. The pornography was found on M.S.’s phone and Rothbarth’s computer, and a spreadsheet showing what pornography websites had been visited on M.S.’s phone was introduced as evidence at trial. M.S. testified at trial about Rothbarth’s sexual abuse, and the jury watched an entire recording of a forensic interview of M.S. and part of a recording of another. At the end of the prosecution’s evidentiary presentation, defense counsel moved for a directed verdict, contending that because the prosecution did not introduce into evidence the videos M.S. watched, it had not proved that they were obscene. The trial court denied the motion. The jury convicted Simpson of promoting obscenity to a minor and child abuse. The court sentenced her to 120 days in jail for the child abuse conviction to be followed by 18 months in the custody of the Department of Corrections for the promoting obscenity conviction.
On appeal, Simpson argued there was insufficient evidence to establish that the videos M.S. watched were obscene because the prosecution failed to admit them into evidence. However, Simpson cited no authority requiring the prosecution to admit into evidence the material alleged to be obscene to carry its burden of proof, and courts that have addressed this issue have reached the opposite conclusion. The court of appeals concluded, for the first time in a published opinion, that the prosecution may meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that material is obscene without requiring the jury to view the material. Here, even without the videos themselves, there was sufficient evidence to support a conclusion by a reasonable jury that the videos met the obscenity definition.
The judgment of conviction was affirmed.