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Sunday, August 16, 2009
A British man has been sentenced to three-and-a-half-years in prison after burglars found images of child pornography on his stolen laptop and turned it over to the police.
Richard Coverdale was convicted of downloading pictures of child abuse as well as exposing himself to an unsuspecting teenage girl over the internet while posing as a 14-year-old boy, according to Gazettelive.com.
Police started investigating the 24-year-old convicted arsonist after burglars discovered the images on a laptop they stole from Coverdale's house in August 2008 and contacted police, the Web site reported.
According to prosecutors, the officers found 13 illegal photos and 65 illegal videos on the computer and uncovered online conversations between Coverdale and a 14-year-old girl, during which Coverdale pretended to be a fictitious 14-year-old boy named Danny, Gazettelive.com reported.
The last of those conversations, which took place days before the burglary, showed Coverdale invited the girl to watch "Danny" on a webcam, then filmed himself performing a sex act, the site reported.
Coverdale was sent to a juvenile detention for four years in 2003 for setting fired to five properties in one night — some with people inside, according to Gazettelive.com.
In addition to his new sentence, Coverdale has been banned for life from working with children and is schedule to receive a sexual offences prevention order this week, the site reported.
Originally posted by jd140
If I break into you house and find a tape of you killing someone, then you are going to jail for murder.
Originally posted by Nutter
Originally posted by jd140
If I break into you house and find a tape of you killing someone, then you are going to jail for murder.
What if I'm a CGI expert and I can make it look like you murdered someone. Then I find my enemy [you], fake a robbery, and go to the cops with my fake video. Thus putting you in jail?
I know that's far out there, but so is a video of a murder vs. pictures on a laptop. Those pictures and videos could have been added at a later time. Therefore, according to law, there is a slight chance of innocence.
Originally posted by fraterormus
In retrospect, I wish I had the same temerity that the thieves in this story had, when years ago I had found Child Pornography on the computer of a friend of my family. I was going to go to the authorities about it, but my wife (who I later found out was having an affair with the guy) begged me not to. I still filed an anonymous tip with the FBI, but to my knowledge it was never followed up on. If I had taken the evidence directly to them, the guy would have been behind bars where he belonged. So, for that, I have to salute these thieves...two wrongs don't make a right, but they did do something right and you have to give them credit for that.