Lawyer who pleaded guilty to possession of child porn gets 1-year sentence
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A San Francisco lawyer accused of keeping more than 600 images of child pornography on his electronic devices, including images of young girls who appear to be as young as 3 years old, has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison after a guilty plea.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg sentenced 68-year-old Michael Lawrence Connell last week after the lawyer said he turned to the internet as a result of stress and depression, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The government had sought a sentence of 51 months in prison after Connell pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of child pornography.
Connell’s federal public defenders had told the court in his sentencing memorandum that he did not have “a blemish in his record” before the prosecution, and his behavior was caused by depression after his wife’s extended illness and death.
The public defenders argued that a long sentence for Connell would not serve as a deterrent to others. “The unfortunate truth is that the internet created a monster that people who have psychological issues fall prey to, and it is a monster that will perpetuate itself regardless of the sentence imposed upon Mr. Connell,” they wrote.
Connell told the court in a statement that his mother had died when he was 8 years old and his father became an alcoholic. He worked his way through college as a janitor and then went to law school and went to work for the labor union movement.
Connell said his wife had a stroke in April 2011 that left her incontinent, unable to walk and unable to put her thoughts into words. Connell learned how to bathe his wife, change her diapers, deliver her medicine and insert her catheter. He also had help from a caregiver, as he had to continue working to maintain health insurance.
Still, the out-of-pocket costs exhausted their savings, and the couple took a reverse mortgage. Connell’s wife died the day after Christmas in 2015 after having a second stroke several days earlier.
Connell said he was isolated and lonely, and he turned to the internet. He never had an improper sexual relationship and never touched a child inappropriately, he said.
In the years since his December 2017 arrest, Connell has attended individual and group therapy and has attended more than 200 Sexaholic Anonymous meetings, according to the public defenders’ memo. He is also active in his church.
Prosecutors said, however, that the 600-plus images of child pornography found were primarily of young girls, and they included images of adult males engaging in sex with young children. Although there was no evidence that Connell created child pornography, his possession of the images “caused continued victimization of the children depicted,” prosecutors said in the sentencing memo.
Connell was sentenced to five years of supervised release after he serves his prison sentence and fined $5,000. He is also required to pay $9,000 in restitution and must register as a sex offender.
Connell’s law license was placed on interim suspension after his guilty plea.
