Galena man sentenced to 4 years for child pornography

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A Galena man was sentenced to four years in prison on child pornography charges Friday afternoon in Delaware County Common Pleas Court.

Larry Allen Paynter II, 36, of 5594 Cheshire Road, Galena, appeared in court Friday to be sentenced by Judge David Gormley. He had changed his plea to guilty last month.

Paynter was sentenced for two counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor, second-degree felonies.

Paynter was indicted in February after a search warrant led to the discovery of more than 900 images and videos of children in sexual situations, prosecutors said.

Assistant Prosecutor Douglas Dumolt said that Paynter had downloaded the images from the Internet and was not creating or selling them. However, he said that because he was using peer-to-peer file sharing, he was further distributing the images.

Dumolt said there is a presumption of prison in sentencing like this case and said it was not a victim-less crime.

Paynter had previously served a six-year-prison sentence — from 2001 to 2007 — stemming from a 2000 court case when he was convicted on charges of compelling prostitution and sexual battery. Paynter became a registered sex offender after his conviction.

Paynter’s attorney, Donald R. Reeder, said that crimes committed by his client were different than the previous case.

“There were victims in the [sexually battery] case,” Reeder said. “[In comparison to downloading child pornography] here the victims are society as a whole. What he did, he did in a vacuum. What harm befell society because of that conduct?”

Reeder went on to request community control for his client and said Paynter is an ideal candidate.

Paynter told Gormley that he was depressed when he downloaded the images and had lost his support group. He added that he didn’t trust himself to be on the Internet unsupervised.

Ultimately, Gormley sentenced him to four years on each charge and ordered that the sentences be served concurrently.

Gormley added that he had originally planned to sentence him to five years in prison but backed the sentence off after considering the statements made in court.

Paynter was taken into custody by Delaware County sheriff’s deputies to begin serving his sentence.

Dumolt said the child pornography used as evidence in this case would be destroyed.

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