By Tom Gilchrist
For The Advertiser
BAY CITY — A Millington Township man has pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing child pornography, telling federal authorities he possessed at least 600 images of child pornography on a computer between 2010 and 2013.
No sentencing date has been set in U.S. District Court in Bay City for Coy F. Thomason, 29 at the time he entered a guilty plea Jan. 15.
Sentencing guidelines call for Thomason to spend a minimum of 6 and 1/2 years in prison to a maximum of 8 years and 1 month. The guidelines are merely a recommendation for U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington, who will sentence Thomason.
If Ludington sentences Thomason along those guidelines, Thomason agrees not to appeal his conviction or sentence, according to court records. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a count of knowingly receiving child pornography.
The crime of knowingly possessing child pornography carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Federal investigators say Thomason admitted to trying to meet young girls using the Internet, but that he claimed he planned to alert law-enforcement officers when he acquired child pornography or succeeded in arranging a meeting with a girl.
U.S. attorneys allege Thomason received child pornography by computer from February of 2010 until agents searched his address on Aug. 22, 2013. They allege his laptop computer contained the images of child pornography.
FBI Special Agent Henrik Impola claims in an affidavit that Thomason admitted he is the only person with access to an email address that — according to Impola — “seemed to be used for the purpose of obtaining pornography under the alias of Katie Thomas.”
The special agent wrote that he reviewed activity at that email address and “identified the distribution and receipt of graphic pictures of prepubescent girls without clothes on and the frequent use of social networking sites to facilitate the distribution of the child pornography.”
Thomason’s attorney, Sylvan Lake lawyer Joan Ellerbusch Morgan, has declined comment about the charges.
According to the affidavit, the FBI alleges Internet users “Kevin Clark” and “Katie Thomas” engaged in email exchanges of pictures, which resulted in “Clark” stating on July 31, 2012 that he would provide “Katie” with images “of me and my stepdaughter for you.”
The FBI alleges that in August of 2012 “Clark” provided “Katie” with a “graphic amateur video … which portrayed sex acts between a man and a prepubescent girl.” The FBI also alleges “Clark” provided Thomason with a “graphic amateur video of a prepubescent girl wearing a dog collar engaged in sex acts with an animal.”