90 Day Fiance star claims he downloaded child porn by ACCIDENT as he begs court to overturn 10-year prison sentence

90 Day Fiancé alum Michael Eloshway has requested a judge toss his 2024 conviction in connection with possession and distribution of child pornography, saying his attorney fumbled a number of critical steps in the process.

Eloshway, in a motion filed Monday to an Ohio federal court reviewed by the Daily Mail, said that his lawyer at trial proved 'ineffective' in defending him, citing numerous factors he said were disadvantageous during his legal battle.

The reality TV personality, who appeared on seven episodes of the TLC program in 2014, said in the motion that his lawyer 'never procured a forensic digital expert to examine the digital discovery law enforcement collected from his computer.'

Eloshway, 44, who is serving his sentence at an Ohio prison, said that the mediocre performance bled into the jury selection phase and trial.

Citing his complaints, Eloshway asked the court to 'vacate his convictions and sentence so that he can plead open to the indictment and request a sentence that the court indicated it would have imposed had he pled prior to trial.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to the federal public defender for Eloshway for further comment on the story. 

He said in his motion that he began 'looking at a lot of porn' after a series of unfortunate events in his life. 

They included a car accident that initially left him hospitalized; the death of a friend via suicide; and multiple deaths and illnesses in his family.

Eloshway told the court that he had not intended to download the illegal pornography, as he would take large files from a sharing site called BitTorrent, where he said he 'would receive regularly over 1,000 files.' 

Prosecutors said that Eloshway 'observed child pornography in ... batches' before deleting the files, and continued 'to use BitTorrent' after he was aware of its presence.

They said that officials in May of 2023 found around 8,000 'horrific images on his computer,' of which 62 had been shared.

Eloshway in October of 2024 was convicted and subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison and a total of $15,000 in fines, in addition to 10 years of probation. 

He was ordered by the court to register as a sex offender and have no contact with any underage people unless his probation officer authorizes it.

His sentencing stipulated, 'You must not have direct contact with any child you know or reasonably should know to be under the age of 18, including your own children, without the permission of the probation officer.' 

Eloshway sought to have the conviction overturned last year. He said that his lawyer's 'performance fell below professional standards' when he erroneously 'failed to question the panel members’ feelings about adult pornography.' 

The United States Court of Appeals denied his previous appeal in his case.

The court rejected his claims of subpar representation, as well as a claim that the presiding judge had given him a sentence that was 'unreasonable' pertaining to his conviction.

Eloshway labeled himself as a person 'who lacked the intent to distribute, download or even [watch the illegal material] and took measures to prevent its distribution once he discovered that its presence would inadvertently appear on his computer.'

Before he was sentenced, his spouse Aziza Eloshway defended her husband as 'a loving father, a caring husband, a loyal friend and, overall, a good and kind person' in a letter she submitted to the court.

Aziza said her spouse had been 'tortured by his feelings of guilt and regret for the irresponsible mistake that he's made.'

She added, 'I am his wife of 11 years. I have known him for over 12 years and can assure you that this conviction is not a reflection of his true character.'