Hamilton County prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence an Evendale man to 7½ years in prison for child exploitation felonies. They argue his job at a Kenwood Towne Centre children's store and his role as a church musician gave him regular access to minors.

Rain Phoenix-Brown, 24, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, Oct. 1, before Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Jody Luebbers.

Phoenix-Brown pleaded guilty Sept. 2 to three counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, each a fourth-degree felony, and one count of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony. He had originally pleaded not guilty in March.

In a sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday, Sept. 30, Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Elyse Deters asked Judge Luebbers to impose 18 months on each pandering conviction and 36 months for the tampering conviction. All four terms would run consecutively, totaling 90 months, as first reported by WCPO.

Prosecutors argued Phoenix-Brown poses an "extreme danger" to children and that community supervision would not protect the public.

The memo detailed Phoenix-Brown's employment at Squishables, a stuffed-animal store on the upper level of Kenwood Towne Centre near the LEGO store. Prosecutors said he regularly encountered children there. Evendale Police Sgt. Pete Faillace, the lead investigator, wrote in a letter to the judge that the job "put him in permanent vicinity of his conduct."

The memo also described Phoenix-Brown's work as a musician for Catholic churches and a June 2024 application for a babysitting program called Sittercity. He wrote in the application that he wanted to work with children.

Evendale Police Chief Tim Holloway submitted a separate letter asking for the maximum sentence. Holloway wrote that investigators found "multiple stacks of diapers" in Phoenix-Brown's bedroom and argued the evidence showed a sustained pattern of behavior.

A February search of Phoenix-Brown's Evendale home led police to seize his cellphone, iPad, laptop and other electronics. Forensic exams uncovered thousands of images depicting AI-generated minors or anime characters engaged in sexual acts, according to court records.

Prosecutors said forensic evidence also tied Phoenix-Brown to an encrypted MEGA account containing 3,254 uploaded files. Investigators said filenames were consistent with known child sexual abuse material, but they could not recover the full contents.

According to prosecutors, Phoenix-Brown deleted the MEGA account roughly seven minutes after speaking with law enforcement. He later wrote in a Telegram message that he had "wiped everything" from his phone. That destruction led to his tampering conviction.

Prosecutors noted Phoenix-Brown had previously been interviewed by the FBI regarding child sexual abuse material. The state argued that earlier contact did not deter him and that he became more sophisticated in using encrypted platforms.

Phoenix-Brown's defense characterized him as a "non-contact offender," according to prosecutors' summary of defense arguments. A defense-commissioned assessment found him "amenable to treatment." Prosecutors countered that the assessment did not determine whether he could safely be supervised in the community and that treatment could take place in prison.

"The limited amount of illegal content law enforcement was ultimately able to recover should not operate as mitigation when the Defendant himself made the rest unavailable," Deters wrote in the memo.

Under the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to pursue additional tampering and related charges through the grand jury.