A 2009 graduate of Shelton High School was sentenced to five years in prison for possessing pornographic images and videos of children.
The five year prison sentence will be suspended after Albert Franklin, Jr., 20, serves one year. He will then be on probation for 10 years.
Franklin used Limewire, a popular Internet file sharing service, to download the child pornography to his Gateway laptop and make them available to others on the Internet, according to the arrest warrant used to charge him.
The case against Franklin started in Pennsylvania, where a state police investigator came across an image of child pornography being shared on the Internet. Police traced the image back to Franklin’s home in Shelton, where he lived with his parents.
On Dec. 15, 2009, the investigator was able to access files being shared on Limewire from Franklin’s computer, where police claimed to see at least 650 image files and 57 video files of suspected child pornography. The investigator downloaded 10 images and a video. One image included a naked boy between two and five years old with what appeared to be white seminal fluid on the child’s buttocks.
Investigators eventually used the images to get an arrest warrant. The Franklin’s Shelton home was searched Feb. 24, 2010.
They found five images of child pornography on Franklin’s computer along with 10 videos.
“The image and movie files were of children who appeared to be under 16 engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” the arrest warrant states.
Franklin eventually admitted to police that he used Limewire to search for the images and videos. He had been downloading and deleting the files, according to the arrest warrant.
Franklin was initially charged with first-degree possession of child pornography, obscenity, and promoting a minor in an obscene performance.
He pleaded guilty to third-degree possession of child pornography, a felony, in front of Judge Burton Kaplan in Superior Court in Derby Wednesday (Sept. 28).
In addition to serving a year in prison term and 10 years probation, Franklin will have to undergo sex offender counseling — and register as a sex offender. Once out of prison, he will not be allowed to have unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 16 during his time on probation.
Franklin’s laptop will be destroyed. The images found on his computer were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.