Jacksonville man gets 25 years for child porn

A 43-year-old Jacksonville man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after admitting he accessed child pornography over the Internet.

Shawn Daniel Wright, who has no prior criminal record, pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims on Tuesday. The sentence represents five years for each of the illegal images, deputy prosecutor Jacob Deyoung said. Wright will also have to register as a sex offender.

Under the plea agreement negotiated by Wright’s attorney, Pat Aydelott, prosecutors dropped another 15 counts. Each one is a Class C felony that carries up to 10 years in prison. The photos were acquired between March 23, 2010, and Aug. 10, 2015, the night before his arrest, court filings show.

Wright, a married father of one, was arrested at his Kelso Road home by Arkansas State Police investigators who had been alerted through a complaint by Wright’s Internet provider that 159 photos of child pornography had been uploaded from his NetZero account, according to an arrest report.

Wright was arrested after police agents with a search warrant seized computer equipment from the residence. The report said Wright admitted to investigators that he had uploaded child porn before and had been looking at child-porn photographs the night before police arrived at his home. He said he’d been regularly looking at those kinds of pictures since 2001 despite attempting therapy to overcome his interest in children, the report said.