Life sentence urged in child porn case

East Vincent man convicted on 477 counts

WEST CHESTER >> Prosecutors in the case of a former Chester County business executive who stored an extensive cache of child pornography in his East Vincent home are asking a Common Pleas Court judge to impose a sentence that guarantees that he will spend the rest of his life in a state prison.

The sentence of 20-to-40 years in prison, though technically less than what James Franklin Holmes could face in his convictions on 477 counts relating to the pornography, would “ensure the safety of children,” First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone and Assistant District Attorney Ryan Borchik wrote in an Aug. 8 sentencing memo.

Holmes, who is 65, is currently serving a 13- to 27-year sentence at the state prison at Dallas for his conviction in Lycoming County on child trafficking charges. He had attempted to lure a woman there to bring her young daughter to live with him in East Vincent so he could sexually abuse thee child, authorities said.

The one-time Siemens Medical Solutions IT executive was found guilty of the crimes of sexual abuse of children and possession of child pornography at a two-day trial in May at which his

wife testified that Holmes had made her watch videos involving child porn when they had sex. He kept a video player with the images in the couple’s bedroom, according to testimony.

“This case deals with videos,” Noone and Borchik wrote in their memo to Judge Jeffrey Sommer, who presided over Holmes’ trial. “But it is important to remember that each video in (Holmes’) possession depicted the sexual abuse of a real child.

“Those children exist, and those rapes, assaults, and indecent contacts were really committed. (Holmes), and all who would possess and view this type of content, form a market for its continued creation,” the prosecutors wrote. “Without their consumption of it, there would be no demand for the videotaping of children.”

The pair urged Sommer to “remove (Holmes) from this market permanently.”

Holmes was scheduled to be sentenced last Friday, Aug. 16. But that proceeding has been continued until

Holmes can be appointed a new attorney to represent him. His attorney at trial, Joshua Camson of Collegeville, withdrew from the case following the guilty verdict. A new attorney, Charles Flanigan Jr., then took over the case, but he has since left the county’s list of courtappointed attorneys.

No new date has been set for the sentencing.

The case in Chester County against Holmes began in December 2015, when state police investigated a case in which a Lycoming woman reported having a man contact her about making her then-1-year-old daughter available to him to sex.

The woman said she had met the man online and at a “swing party,” and that he said he had molested children in the past and wanted to do so again. The man, who identified himself as “Craig Jones,” offered to pay the woman if she would bring her daughter to his home in the Philadelphia suburbs so that he could begin molesting her.

Their communications were at some point taken over by state police, who posed as the woman and convinced Holmes that she wanted to come meet him. He offered to pay for her bus

ticket to Reading. According to authorities, his plan was to see how the woman liked the situation and possibly allow her to become his “second wife.”

“Those actions make the defendant more than just a collector,” Noone and Borchik wrote. “They make him a predator.”

Holmes was arrested at the bus depot in Reading on Dec. 4, 2015, and state police, led by Cpl. Lori Edgar Kistle, raided his Kimberton home, where his wife and young son lived.

They seized a dozen DVDs and two computer hard drives containing hundreds of images of child pornography, according to a criminal complaint. The material, including digital videos, were found, she wrote, in Holmes’ downstairs office and his master bedroom.

The images and recordings typically involved young girls and adult men, but also involved young boys, according to the trooper’s complaint.

“In total, the forensic analysis of the seized items revealed that there were approximately 477 videos depicting children under the age of 13 engaged in indecent contact with other children or adults, and approximately 174 images of children

under the age of 13 engaged in sexually prohibited acts,” Kistle wrote.

The jury hearing his case in May took less than a halfhour to find him guilty.

Holmes is a native of

Latrobe who served 28 years in the U.S. Air Force. He has a master’s degree on Computer Information Systems, and worked at Siemens from 2006 to 2009 when he was laid off. At the time of his arrest

in 2015, he worked for Resource America in Philadelphia.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.