Just from experience, his best bet if he does serve time is make up an offense that’s aggravated so that he can use that as a cover to why he doesn’t have a short time. I had a six year sentence and told other inmates I was there for an assault charge. That was much easier to pass on since I was a bit bigger, and I never deviated from that story. Luckily for me I kept my nose clean and off the CO’s radar so as not to draw their ire, but I can only pray for this kids’ safety cause sadly it happens all too often that CO’s fail to protect every inmate, especially those convicted of crimes of a sexual nature.

Read my piece again more carefully. He not only took a plea, but he took an open plea.

Unfortunately, those that have the most manpower and largest arsenal get to make all the decisions. The ridiculously long sentence pretty much guarantees that his family/friends have to spend a lot of time fretting over his welfare and planning/paying for appeals. Hopefully, he didn’t take a plea or an appeal will be much harder.

Thank you for saying “non-contact,” as I did in the piece. I have seen comments on other forums where these are called “victimless crimes,” and they are not victimless. Real children were molested and abused, and they were real victims. “Non-contact” is the correct nomenclature.
We cannot know how intrusive the photos were or were not as we have not seen them. I do not believe we should play down the photos or what was done to the child victims. We can only protest the non-contact nature of the offense; the youth of Anthony, especially as it appears he started this activity at the age of 14 or even younger; and the failure of our system to recognize and manage these sorts of offenses as addiction and mental health issues.

You wanna talk about choices?

Yet the 14-year-old kid, that shot that school up in Georgia the other day, will not even get nowhere near 68 years.

Too bad this country doesn’t deem gun ownership as a threat and a sickness the way it does images.

Given the penalties involved now, I would tell anyone arrested for a sex crime in general, child porn in particular, to NOT take a plea under any circumstances and demand not only full trial, but a speedy one. And add not to be swayed by the defense counsel’s (likely the public defender in most cases) attempts to waive the speedy part.

I wonder how zealously LE would pursue CP and those stupid bait and switch stings if everyone arrested on those charges simply refused to waive those rights.

No way this case didn’t demand a trial! Period, end of story.
Along with every ” plea bargain ” comes the highest price. The liberty cost is in the form of a defendant’s signed standard waiver of civil rights. The signature is equivalent to a complete and unconditional surrender to the will of the people. 5,000 + are signed every working court day in America a n every plea bargain. Right now it’s this man’s biggest hurdle, legally speaking. IMO another casualty of our database driven infrastructure.