Long prison term in Peoria for child porn "librarian"

This local story, headlined "Peoria man gets 19 years for child pornography library," provides an effective account of another notable federal sentencing for a child porn downloader.  Here are some details:

Michael D. Dupoy ... was sentenced to 220 months in federal prison Friday. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm said the term was necessary because of Dupoy's extensive criminal record and remarks Dupoy posted online urging others with whom he traded illicit images to think of ways to avoid being caught.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Schoenbein cited the library of 26,000 child pornography images and hundreds of videos Dupoy had amassed on his computer. Saying Dupoy had "sold his soul," Schoenbein asked Mihm for the maximum 20-year sentence. "He didn't dabble in this, he immersed himself in it," Schoenbein said. "He's not going to change."

Attorney Robert Alvarado of the federal defender's office argued for a 10-year sentence, attacking the federal sentencing guidelines that would put his client behind bars for longer than if he had actually molested a child.

Mihm said he would have considered that argument had it been made for a different defendant, one with a lesser criminal history.  But Dupoy, who has been convicted of a litany of property crimes and spent most of his life since the age of 13 in correctional centers, was not the right defendant.  Mihm also scuttled the idea that Dupoy's crime was less hurtful than if he had physically touched children: "The fact that these things are shared encourages people to do this."

Dupoy expressed remorse to the court during a brief statement in which he revealed had been physically and sexually abused by his father and asked for leniency.  "I have lived with what my dad did to me all my life, and I prayed to God to help me stop looking at children," he said.  "I know I have done wrong and I am deeply sorry for what I have done."