United States v. Bycroft

── United States v. Bycroft ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: May 05, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 24-7069 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 05/05/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS May 5, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 24-7069 HEATHER NICOLE BYCROFT, Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 6:21-CR-00325-TDD-2) _________________________________ Howard A. Pincus, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado (Virginia, L. Grady, Federal Public Defender, with him on the briefs) for Defendant-Appellant. Lisa C. Williams, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Muskogee, Oklahoma (Christopher J. Wilson, United States Attorney, with her on the briefs) for Plaintiff- Appellee. _________________________________ Before HOLMES, Chief Judge, EBEL, and CARSON, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ EBEL, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ In this direct criminal appeal, defendant Heather Nicole Bycroft argues the district court abused its discretion by admitting evidence that she had recorded illicit pornographic videos of adult females as “other acts” evidence pursuant to Federal  Appellate Case: 24-7069 Document: 72-1 Date Filed: 05/05/2026 Page: 2 Rule of Evidence 404(b) at her trial for producing child pornography. Specifically, she argues the other acts evidence was irrelevant and did not serve a proper purpose. To the contrary, we agree with the district court that the evidence was relevant because of the substantial similarity between the acts and because there were at least two proper purposes for which this evidence was admitted pursuant to Rule 404(b): to prove Bycroft’s identity and the absence of mistake or accident. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we AFFIRM Bycroft’s conviction. I. BACKGROUND Bycroft, along with her husband Jason, was charged on the basis of three videos (“the pool videos”) located on Jason’s Dropbox account, an online storage service. These videos depict Jason in a pool with a six-year-old girl at a Fourth of July family gathering in 2015. In the first video, Jason is touching the girl’s upper leg and torso and then throws the girl into the air. In the second video, Jason moves the girl’s shorts and underwear, thus showing part of her groin and upper thigh. In the third video, Jason moves the girl’s shorts and underwear, thus exposing her genitalia to the camera. Bycroft herself is not visibly present in any of the videos. There is, however, a female voice evidently coming from the camera operator in the first and third videos. Bycroft denied that this was her voice. Meanwhile, four witnesses—Bycroft’s mother-in-law, Bycroft’s sister-in-law, a family friend, and the investigating sergeant—testified that they did believe the voice was Bycroft’s. Bycroft was ultimately charged with Sexual Exploitation of a Child/Use of a Child to Produce a 2  Appellate Case: 24-7069 Document: 72-1 Da