A 40-year-old New Castle, Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for acts involving child pornography he had committed. He had been charged in 2009 after an investigation found thousands of images and videos allegedly depicting child pornography in his home northwest of Pittsburgh.

Evidence consisted of a range of technology including two camcorders, 8 thumb drives, 36 zip drives, 3,000 floppy disks, 4,000 compact discs, 60 hard drives and 17 computers all of which contained images of children he had collected over the past 20 years.

U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer sentenced the defendant to an unusually long sentence for his convictions for receipt, possession and distribution of child pornography. She justified her ruling when she said that "this is not an average case by any stretch of the matter. There has been no case to this date in this court that reaches that level." Judge Fischer also mentioned the alleged relationship that the defendant had with a 15-year-old girl and an incident in which he allegedly solicited the minor and asked for nude photos of her 5-year-old cousin.

One specific victim, now 21-years-old and known as "Amy," asked the court to impose restitution on her behalf. The young girl's photo had been taken by a relative and distributed across the nation. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the photographs have been viewed in over 3,227 evidence reviews. The young girl has sought over $3.2 million from all defendants convicted of possessing or distributing the images.

The defendant's attorney was outraged at the sentence and restitution award, arguing that the punishment was unreasonable. "I just can't say this is just punishment for the conduct that's been proved," the Assistant Public Defender told the media.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "New Castle man with vast collection of child porn gets 30-year-sentence" Paula Reed Ward 10/5/10