Richmond Man Sentenced to 7 Years for Receiving Child Pornography

According to the Department of Justice, a Richmond man is the latest to be sentenced for child pornography charges, an ongoing and increasing problem.

Pleading Guilty for receipt of child pornography, a Richmond man named David Leroy Knellinger Sr., 60, will now face a prison sentence of 87 months, which adds up to 7.25 years in prison. This recent sentencing was announced today by both U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg of the Eastern District of Virginia as well as Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division.

David Leroy Knellinger Sr. actually pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography one day before his trial was going to begin, which was scheduled for April 24, 2007. Part of his plea, which was before the Honorable Robert E. Payne in the Richmond Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, David Leroy Knellinger Sr. was faced to serve five years following his prison term of supervised release as well as pay a $15,000 fine. These orders were under the United States District Judge Payne.

So how exactly was Knellinger caught? He was obtaining videos which showed under age children performing sexually explicit conduct by using a program named iMesh, which is a peer-to-peer software program. Knellinger admitted this as part of his plea agreement. What exactly is peer-to-peer? This software allows Internet users to trade images, audio, and video files by simply directly connecting over the Internet. On April 3, 2005, Knellinger admitted about using this program to search for files associated with child pornography. When he found what he was looking for, he downloaded the files and ans save approximately three of them to his computer. To make this case even more interesting, in one of the videos that Knellinger downloaded was a young girl, about 10 or 11 years old, that was involved with an adult male in sexual acts. Who was this man in the video? Police identified both the young girl and the male, who was Kenneth Freeman, a male on "15 Most Wanted." Yes, this male in the video was a fugitive on the list of the United State Marshal's Service. Currently contesting extradition, Freeman was arrested in Hong Kong, China in May 2, 2007. Yes, two bad men caught at once. Both Knellinger and Freeman.

Though it is great another bad man was caught, it is still sad that crimes like the occur in a country that is supposed to be so safe and the top country in the world. No country is perfect.

SOURCE

Department of Justice