Child-porn plea results in 73-month prison term
A Pulaski County man who pleaded guilty in federal court last March to one count of receipt of child pornography was sentenced Thursday to six years, one month in federal prison.
Terry Lee Good, 50, of Jacksonville was originally charged in April 2019 in Pulaski County Circuit Court with eight counts of distribution/possession/ viewing matter depicting child sex. Those charges were dismissed the following October after Good was federally indicted on two counts of receipt, one count of possession, and one count of transportation of child pornography.
In exchange for his guilty plea on the one count of receipt of child pornography, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to dismiss the remaining three counts against him.
At his sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr., Good, saying it had been a “very difficult two-anda-half-years,” tearfully expressed his remorse for the crime, saying that it had cost him everything, including his family. He said when he was in his early to middle teens, he had experimented with sex with other boys his age but said he rejected any notion that he might be gay.
“I look at that as a lack of courage on my part back then,” he said. “I wanted to be normal, I wanted to not be labeled anything so I did the things that I thought should be done as a normal person.”
Good said he joined the Air Force and served in the Middle East during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and upon leaving military service, got married and eventually had three sons.
After an extended pause as he struggled to contain himself, Good apologized to Moody and continued. He said that over time, intimacy with his wife ended and he began to fixate on pornography, initially viewing adult pornography but about a year before he was arrested, he said, he encountered child pornography on a social media site.
“At the time I knew it was wrong but I guess I felt that it was no harm to anybody,” he said.
Good said he wasn’t particularly interested in images of children but said it was reminiscent of his early teenage years “when I did experiment.”
Good said his belief that it didn’t hurt anyone changed after reading the victim impact statements.
“After seeing the hurt these victims endured,” he said, beginning to choke up once again, “I’m deeply ashamed that I would dare to be part of something like that.”
In addition to the victims, Good described the pain that he had inflicted upon his family. He said the morning his home was raided by a police SWAT team, his oldest son was attending the police academy in Pocahontas. He said that not long after his arrest, his wife and children moved to Arizona to be near family and none of his sons has spoken to him since.
“Before all this occurred I would like to think I was a good dad,” he said, tearfully. “But I was obsessed with porn. It was destructive to all of my relationships.”
In a variance motion filed Wednesday by John Wesley Hall, Good’s attorney, Hall asked that Good be given credit for 129 days he spent in jail after his arrest on the state charges, expressing his concern that the Bureau of Prisons may not credit the time because Good was not actually in federal custody.
Hall also said the sentencing enhancements were excessive and should be reduced and included a revised sentence range calculation of 46 to 57 months based on his requested revisions.
A response filed by Assistant U.S Attorney Allison Bragg late Wednesday said Hall’s motion violated the plea agreement in which Good agreed to the stipulations that resulted in the 87- to 108-month guideline sentence range and raised the possibility that the plea deal could be voided.
Moody pointed out that because Hall did not object to the stipulations, the plea deal could be considered to remain intact. He also pointed out that the guideline range Hall calculated fell below the mandatory minimum sentence of 60 months, meaning he could not legally vary downward that far.
Upon sentencing, Moody first varied Good’s sentence down to 78 months, then, upon reconsidering the time Good had spent in jail on the state charges after his arrest, lowered the sentence to 73 months. He also ordered Good to serve 10 years supervised release after he leaves prison with stringent conditions, including a requirement to register as a sex offender and to receive mental health and sex offender counseling arranged through the U.S. Probation Office.