An Iron Range man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for using a cellphone to record short videos of girls showering or getting dressed in their bedrooms.

Kevin J. Petroske, 36, of Hibbing, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis on numerous child pornography charges. A jury convicted him in August after a three-day trial.

Petroske's defense had sought a 15-year term, arguing that "there was no posing of the minors, no sexual, physical or other contact between Mr. Petroske and any of them, and no distribution of the videos." His attorney, Craig Hunter, declined to comment about the sentence.

Local law enforcement first caught Petroske in October 2015 after being alerted to a man peering into the windows of a home in Hibbing.

Petroske has prior convictions in Stearns County for felony stalking and an open investigation in Benton County for allegedly possessing child pornography.

Authorities seized a laptop from Petroske's home that contained hundreds of videos and images of child pornography, according to the U.S. attorney's office. The videos were recorded from October 2011 to September 2015.

According to charges, Petroske used a cellphone to record short videos, from 17 seconds to 2½ minutes long, of young girls showering or getting dressed. In the recordings, he could often be heard making sexual comments. His victims in the Hibbing case were 14 to 16 years old.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482