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Another sweet deal for a female. If this were a man, you can bet they'd be in prison for a very long time, yet if you are a woman, you will pretty much get a slap on the wrist. I hate to sound sexist, but darn it, these double standards need to stop.
11/05/2009
By Tasha Kates
An Albemarle County woman has admitted she downloaded child pornography, but she won’t have to register as a sex offender.
_____, 28, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Albemarle Circuit Court to 10 counts of possession of child pornography as part of a plea agreement. Judge Thomas H. Wood gave _____ a 10-year suspended prison sentence, a year of probation and 10 years of good behavior.
- So one year probation, nothing else. Wow, what a sweet deal!
_____, a mother of two, worked at a daycare facility prior to her arrest. Darby Lowe, deputy commonwealth’s attorney, said in court that _____ searched the LimeWire file sharing service for the images featuring younger children and looked at them while her husband slept.
“It was like seeing a bad car accident. You just keep looking at it,” Lowe said in court, reading a report detailing police conversations with _____.
Authorities with local Internet Crimes Against Children units discovered through advanced software that a computer from _____’s home was downloading the illegal images in April 2009, Lowe said in court. _____ initially told police that she had downloaded the images accidentally.
Defense attorney Scott Goodman said in court that _____ was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, which appears to be the reason she viewed the images. Goodman said his client’s mental health evaluations showed that she didn’t have a sexual attraction to children.
- Being a victim of sexual abuse doesn't excuse it, many who have been labeled a sex offender for less were also sexual abuse victims, and they did not get a sweet deal like she did.
Under the plea agreement, Lowe said in court, _____ won’t face additional charges for other illegal images she is alleged to have downloaded. Lowe said _____ also won’t have to register as a sex offender because the statute doesn’t call for it in cases where a person only possessed, not distributed, child pornography.
After _____’s arrest, Goodman said in court, she was separated from her young children for two weeks while the Albemarle Department of Social Services did an investigation that ultimately didn’t turn up abuse or neglect.
_____ did not say anything on her behalf.
Let’s embrace acceptance, tolerance, inclusion, and understanding!
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