Man gets 10 years in child porn case

A Colorado Springs man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Homeland Security agents found 700,000 child pornography images, including pictures depicting sadomasochistic sex abuse of preteen children.

Denver U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello on Thursday also sentenced 64-year-old Michael Lyle Blair to serve seven years of supervised release following prison. Arguello ordered him to pay $21,000 restitution to seven victims.

Blair pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography.

“Blair stole more than innocence with the 700,000 images he obtained. For years he left a trail of silent victims,” U.S. attorney Bob Troyer said. “With this sentence, those victims are finally heard. And Blair will pay every day for the next 10 years in federal prison.”

Prior to his arrest in March 2017, agents had been investigating Blair, his wife, Sona, and other conspirators in a human trafficking network. They were bringing Asian females to the U.S. and forcing them into lives of prostitution. Sona Blair charged the women $200 for transportation from Denver International Airport and drove them to massage parlors, where she forced them into prostitution, the Gazette reported.

During a Dec. 12, 2013, search of the Blair’s home they discovered a computer and external hard drives containing hundreds of thousands of photographs.