Porn | Billings Man Gets 9 Years For Child Porn

Distributing child pornography to an undercover agent in anInternet chat room sent a Billings man to federal prison for nineyears.

Senior U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom on Wednesday sentencedCharles Lawson Tucker, 48, to the low end of a guideline range thatwent up to about 11 years.

Tucker pleaded guilty in March to distributing and receivingchild porn. The judge earlier dismissed a possession count.

Tucker apologized for what he called his "despicableactions."

An investigation found that Tucker was distributing child pornto an undercover agent in Missouri while chatting online. A searchwarrant served on Tucker's home in January 2010 found 597 imagesand movies on Tucker's computer, including prepubescent childrenengaged in sadistic or masochistic abuse.

Tucker's attorney, Vern Woodward, argued for a five-yearsentence, which was the minimum mandatory by law, saying thesentencing guidelines were unfair.

Woodward called Tucker a decent human being who also was a drunkand who got into child porn because he was depressed andlonely.

Woodward challenged the guidelines, which make receipt anddistribution of child porn more serious crimes than possession. Whyreceiving child porn is more heinous than keeping it "is beyondme," he said. "I don't get the distinction between possession andreceipt," he added.

Referring to another Billings child porn case in which James H.Peak, a former Billings Clinic child psychiatrist, pleaded guiltyon Wednesday to a possession charge, Woodward said in court recordsthat the doctor was charged with simply possessing the material,although he admitted buying and receiving child porn through themail for years.

"There's no logic here. There's simply politics," Woodwardsaid.

"Where to start, your honor?" replied Assistant U.S. AttorneyMarcia Hurd.

Hurd said the U.S. Attorney's Office charges the most seriousoffenses it can prove.

For receipt and distribution charges, the government has toprove someone knowingly received and distributed child porn. shesaid. It is more difficult to know if something received, likegetting a computer file, is child porn. she said. Deciding to keepchild porn becomes possession, she said.

Tucker, Hurd said, got caught because he distributed child pornto an undercover agent.

"The alcohol he used did not cause him to be a childpornographer. He did it at work. Decent human beings do notdistribute," she said.