CANADA -- A Winnipeg man (Luke Brandon Neumann) who pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography, including images of a young child engaged in multiple acts of bestiality, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail.
"These images are burned in my head," said prosecutor Bruce Sychuk of the pictures found on Luke Neumann's computer. "It's going to haunt me for the rest of my life, I can assure the court of that."
Neumann's sentence is on top of the 18 months he has already served in custody.
Neumann, 28, was arrested in July 2012 after the National Child Exploitation Centre in Ottawa was tipped off about illegal images of kids being uploaded from a Winnipeg IP address to a file-sharing service.
City police seized a computer from Neumann's Portage Avenue home containing more than 3,400 images of child pornography and over 1,800 videos. An analysis of the computer revealed Neumann shared the pictures with up to 130 people across the world.
In an online chat with an Argentinian man, Neumann fantasized about "mentoring" young homeless boys and "teaching them about love."
In a police interview, Neumann said he masturbated 2-3 times a day to images of young boys to "control" his longstanding sexual attraction to them.
Neumann was sexually abused as a child and as a teenager (supposedly) became addicted to child pornography, particularly involving young boys, said defence lawyer Zilla Jones.
"He was already essentially corrupted by the time he reached adulthood," Jones told Judge Sid Lerner.
While in custody, Neumann underwent private counselling at his family's expense and completed several jail sponsored counselling programs, Jones said.
"He's done just about everything an individual can do while in custody to better their circumstances," Jones said.
Earlier, Jones tried to persuade Lerner to impose a publication ban on the hearing, arguing any publicity would compromise Neumann's efforts at rehabilitation and subject him to harmful public shaming.
Lerner quickly rejected the motion. "This is an extraordinary remedy ... that I am not prepared to accept," he said. "Concerns about freedom of the press far outweigh the speculative concerns that have been expressed."
(Winnipeg Sun - February 24, 2015)
No comments:
Post a Comment