Here's one I haven't heard of before: a federal judge sentenced a 72-year-old guilty in a child pornography case to 20 years in prison and ordered that he sell his house in Harford County.
Authorities can seize assets linked to the crime, and cars and houses of drug dealers are routinely taken. But I've never seen such action in a child porn case. The judge ordered the defendant to surrender his computer (20 years in federal prison with no chance at parole means this guy will be 92 if he survives long enough to get released), which makes since.
I'm going to try to learn some more information on whether this case is special or part of a new trend to combat child porn. Here is what the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office had to say:
U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced George Kenneth Hayward, age 72, of Kingsville, Maryland, today to 20 years in prison followed by supervised release for life for sexually exploiting a minor to produce child pornography. Judge Blake also ordered that Hayward forfeit his residence and the computers seized at the time of his arrest.
According to Hayward's plea agreement, in November 2008, a five year old girl was interviewed at the Harford County Child Advocacy Center. The girl reported that Hayward had sexual contact with her on a number of occasions when she was in Hayward's care.
A search warrant was executed at his residence on Monica Circle in Kingsville and computers and other items were seized. Images of the five year old girl in sexually explicit poses were discovered, along with images of a series of minor children in various stages of dress, taken in and outside Hayward's residence. Numerous sexually explicit images were taken of the vaginal and anal areas of many of the minor children.
A number of other child pornography images from Hayward's computer that he received over the internet were known images of child pornography as documented by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Review of the images Hayward produced revealed that he had the children he photographed replicate the sexually explicit images shown on the child pornography he received over the internet.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland's program are available at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.