News
Teen Gets 10 Years in Porn Case
Published: Aug 02, 2003 - 01:49 PM
NEW YORK -- Calling it the worst day of his judicial career, a judge blasted Congress on Monday before imposing what he called an excessive mandatory 10-year prison sentence on a teenager who distributed child pornography over the Internet.
U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch said he would have sentenced Jorge L. Pabon Cruz to five years if Congress had not insisted on a punishment more severe than what worse child pornography crimes require and that creates obstacles to rehabilitation.
U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch said he would have sentenced Jorge L. Pabon Cruz to five years if Congress had not insisted on a punishment more severe than what worse child pornography crimes require and that creates obstacles to rehabilitation.
"It's a bitter and unfortunate sentence. I wish I could do more for you," Lynch told Pabon, a 19-year-old who had been living in Rochester, N.Y., when he enabled distribution of thousands of child porn pictures from September 2001 to December 2001. "With a heavy heart and with a firm conviction that the sentence being imposed is neither just nor the best way to protect society nor the way a humane society should treat a very young person with a terrible problem, I impose the mandatory minimum of 10 years."
The judge urged a sobbing Pabon to appeal what he called a draconian sentence, saying he hoped he was "wrong about what the Constitution means in this case."
He said he was unaware of another instance of as young a defendant facing such a long sentence for a similar crime.
Lynch, a judge since 1990, called it "without question the worst day of my judicial career."
He said the sentence had the "potential to do disastrous damage to someone who is not much more than a child himself."
But he said his analysis of the law showed that Congress was within its constitutional rights to insist on a mandatory 10-year sentence for those who place advertisements for child pornography on the Internet.
"Much as I deplore this sentence as a citizen," he said, "I cannot say they acted beyond their authority."
He accused Congress of being too quick to believe that continually lengthening prison sentences will curb crime.
And he said Congress designated sentences indiscriminately, forcing Pabon to serve 10 years in prison but not requiring an equally severe punishment for someone convicted of sexually abusing a child or manufacturing child pornography.
The judge noted that the U.S. Supreme Court recently has been all too willing to back up Congress, upholding the constitutionality of so-called "three strikes" penalties of life in prison for offenses less severe than what Pabon did.
Pabon pleaded for leniency, telling Lynch he was sorry and deeply ashamed. He said he had had his life threatened and had been subjected to abuse in prison that amounted to a "cruel and slow torture."
"I don't know if I can survive it," he said, sobbing as his defense lawyer, Deirdre D. von Dornum, rested her hand against his back.
Lynch said Pabon would need therapy and other treatment because his "interest in child porn cannot simply be written off as adolescent curiosity" but he would be unlikely to qualify for substantial treatment until near the end of his prison term.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Southwell told Lynch that Pabon deserved a long prison term because he set up software to transmit more than 8,000 "brutally explicit" child porn pictures, feeding the appetite for those types of images.
Prosecutors said more than 2,800 people online had viewed the photographs, which showed sexual assaults on children ranging from toddlers to 13-year-olds.
The sentence came in a case in which Lynch had wanted to tell jurors that Pabon faced at least 10 years if convicted. Prosecutors stopped him by taking the issue to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pabon, who sang in a church choir and worked at a pizza shop, was planning to attend the University of Puerto Rico on scholarship when he used a program in 2001 to exchange child pornography on his computer.
The judge said he would recommend Pabon be imprisoned near his mother in Puerto Rico unless a prison could be located where he could be more quickly treated for his mental illnesses.
Copyright ? 2003, The Associated Press
The judge urged a sobbing Pabon to appeal what he called a draconian sentence, saying he hoped he was "wrong about what the Constitution means in this case."
He said he was unaware of another instance of as young a defendant facing such a long sentence for a similar crime.
Lynch, a judge since 1990, called it "without question the worst day of my judicial career."
He said the sentence had the "potential to do disastrous damage to someone who is not much more than a child himself."
But he said his analysis of the law showed that Congress was within its constitutional rights to insist on a mandatory 10-year sentence for those who place advertisements for child pornography on the Internet.
"Much as I deplore this sentence as a citizen," he said, "I cannot say they acted beyond their authority."
He accused Congress of being too quick to believe that continually lengthening prison sentences will curb crime.
And he said Congress designated sentences indiscriminately, forcing Pabon to serve 10 years in prison but not requiring an equally severe punishment for someone convicted of sexually abusing a child or manufacturing child pornography.
The judge noted that the U.S. Supreme Court recently has been all too willing to back up Congress, upholding the constitutionality of so-called "three strikes" penalties of life in prison for offenses less severe than what Pabon did.
Pabon pleaded for leniency, telling Lynch he was sorry and deeply ashamed. He said he had had his life threatened and had been subjected to abuse in prison that amounted to a "cruel and slow torture."
"I don't know if I can survive it," he said, sobbing as his defense lawyer, Deirdre D. von Dornum, rested her hand against his back.
Lynch said Pabon would need therapy and other treatment because his "interest in child porn cannot simply be written off as adolescent curiosity" but he would be unlikely to qualify for substantial treatment until near the end of his prison term.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Southwell told Lynch that Pabon deserved a long prison term because he set up software to transmit more than 8,000 "brutally explicit" child porn pictures, feeding the appetite for those types of images.
Prosecutors said more than 2,800 people online had viewed the photographs, which showed sexual assaults on children ranging from toddlers to 13-year-olds.
The sentence came in a case in which Lynch had wanted to tell jurors that Pabon faced at least 10 years if convicted. Prosecutors stopped him by taking the issue to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pabon, who sang in a church choir and worked at a pizza shop, was planning to attend the University of Puerto Rico on scholarship when he used a program in 2001 to exchange child pornography on his computer.
The judge said he would recommend Pabon be imprisoned near his mother in Puerto Rico unless a prison could be located where he could be more quickly treated for his mental illnesses.
Copyright ? 2003, The Associated Press
