A Wyoming man on Monday was sentenced for manufacturing and distributing child porn as well as abusing three children ages 2, 3 and 8.

The Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office says 49-year-old Russell Jay Byrne was sentenced in Third District Court on Monday. According to the sheriff's office, Byrne took a plea deal that will see him serve between 74 and 100 years.

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According to the sheriff's office, the joint investigation began nearly two years ago after a sheriff's detective and DCI special agents received a number of anonymous tips about Byrne's illegal activities.

"Investigators learned that Byrne was using a number of different social media platforms to access and distribute child pornography online," a release states. "Through the course of the investigation, task force officers also discovered that Byrne was sexually abusing three of his grandchildren, recording the sexual assaults and distributing some of those recordings as part of his growing collection of child pornography."

Byrne was arrested in November 2021 without incident after an undercover operation consisting of several law enforcement agencies.

Sweetwater County Sheriff John Grossnickle commended the various agencies who took part in the investigation.

"It's sad that this kind of thing is something that we face in this day and age, but that's why adding one of our own detectives as a dedicated member of this important regional task force was a priority for me and our team so that we can better serve the community and protect our children from predators who choose to exploit the relative anonymity of modern technology in order to hurt innocent people in this disgusting way," Grossnickle said.

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