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LAKELAND, FLA-The Polk County Sheriff's Department will soon own the domain for a porn site.
Christopher Wilson, the former cop who allowed U.S. soldiers to post pictures of war dead on his website in exchange for access to alleged pornographic materials on the site, has agreed to turn over the website domain to the sheriff's department in a plea deal after pleading no contest to five counts of possession of obscene materials. The charges against him were unrelated to the war scene images posted by soldiers.
Wilson, 28, arrested in October, had been charged with 301 obscenity-related charges for alleged sexual contact on his website, described by Polk County judge Grady Judd as the "most horrific, vile, perverted sexual conduct….as we've ever investigated".
In return for his plea, prosecutors dismissed one felony charge and 295 other misdemeanor charges. He will not be classified as a sex offender.
He will be sentenced to five years of probation and can operate his website for 90 days until his sentencing on April 21. He has been credited for time served. He agreed to turn over ownership of the web domain to the sheriff's department so that it could not be used by anyone else to distribute sexually explicit material. According to prosecutors, their main goal had been to shut down the website.
He had been free on $151,000 bail since his October arrest but trial court judge J. Dale Durrance revoked his bail and sent him to jail in mid-December after seeing 30 photos and videos from the site, ordered him held without bail until at least February, ruling that Wilson had violated his pretrial release by allowing new sexually explicit photographs to be posted to the site. Durrance determined that there was probable cause to believe that the materials would be determined obscene.
Wilson appealed the bail revocation and was later ordered released from jail with bail reinstated by the 2nd District Court of Appeals.
Wilson made headlines in recent months when U.S. military officials discovered that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were sending him gruesome images of war in exchange for free access to a site that allows members of the public to post and view amateur pornographic photos and videos. Wilson, who operated the site from his Lakeland home, then posted the violent war photos on the site as a way to help spark debate about U.S. politics.
Wilson, his attorney and others claim that he had a First Amendment right to allow alleged pornographic materials to be posted on his site. He had removed the sexual photos and videos from the website after he was told they were objectionable.
Wilson also agreed to not have any dealings with Internet businesses that relate to adult content while he is on probation. 1-14-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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