ST. LOUIS – The aftershock of a child porn case is sending traumatic ripples into the lives of young victims.
A 33-year-old suspect Christopher D. Cotton revealed continued trauma for child victims. One child said she was exploited online at least 22,000 times.
A federal judge gave Cotton a 10-year prison sentence for possessing thousands of images and videos of child porn. The court record indicates the crimes will stay with the victims forever.
“It’s not teenagers; it’s very young children, and in the course of their abuse, they’re very often subjected to very violent treatment,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jillian Anderson.
The Cotton case includes allegations that one child porn victim was an infant who sometimes appeared unconscious. Another victim said that he was abused from ages 6 to 12 and that it was documented and shared across the country.
He’s now 18 and says the “images continue to be shared.”
“There is not one day that goes by that I don’t think, with hatred, about the sick and disgusting people who view… my abuse when I was just a little kid,” he said.
An adoptive mother wrote the court about her abused and exploited child.
“I have to be on guard 24/7,” she said. “I hope and pray no one finds out or recognizes my child.”
“These children do get recognized and have to take extreme actions and have to be taken out of their schools and moved to other schools,” said Prosecutor Anderson.
“It never ends. It is never over,” said another child victim.
Yet another victim wrote, “My mom received 22,000 notifications, and I had to stop them because it made me have panic attacks.”
“When law enforcement identifies and rescues these victims,” Anderson said. “They’re given an option to be notified every single time that their abused images appear in a criminal case. If they opt into that, then we do notify them, and some of these victims wake up to an email notification almost daily.”
The defendant’s attorney said his client has never had any other criminal trouble.
“33 years old and had nothing but a traffic ticket his entire life,” Joel Schwartz said. “You actually are facing more time in many, many instances in a case like this for viewing child pornography than you are in instances of actually touching or harming a child.”
Schwartz alleged that politicians have skewed the punishment for possession.
“I think it’s misguided as far as the severity of what those individuals facing because it’s frankly an addiction,” he said.
Along with a 10-year prison sentence, Cotton was ordered to pay $66,000 to the known victims and be supervised for life.