Monday, March 26, 2007

Guilty plea in Web child-porn case

NJ.com: Times of Trenton updates: Guilty plea in Web child-porn case: "A 28-year-old Maryland man has pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography over the Internet to a person he believed was a 14 year-old boy, the Attorney General's office announced Tuesday.

In reality, the recipient was an undercover investigator with the state Division of Criminal Justice's Computer Analysis and Technology Unit, posing as a juvenile in a chat room known to be frequented by potential pedophiles, officials said.

Walter Edward Whetzel, 28, of Cumberland, Md., pleaded guilty before a Superior Court Judge in Mercer County to second-degree distribution of child pornography and third-degree attempted debauchery of a child.

He was arrested by state investigators and the Maryland State Police on July 12, 2004 at his Cumberland home. More than 200 images of child pornography were found on a home computer seized by the Division of Criminal Justice, officials said."

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