20-Year Sentence in 1st Anime Child Porn Conviction

RICHMOND, Va. — A judge has sentenced a Virginia man to 20 years in prison for 74 counts of child pornography, including several charges related to anime.

Dwight Whorley, of Richmond, was already on probation for a previous child porn conviction.

Whorley, 52, was the first person convicted under the Protect Act for anime child porn.

In November, a jury found him guilty of using a public computer at a Virginia Employment Commission office in March 2004 to receive 20 obscene Japanese anime cartoons that graphically depicted prepubescent female children being forced to engage in sexual intercourse with adult males.

The jury also convicted Whorley of receiving 14 digital photographs of real children engaging in sexually explicit conduct and of sending and receiving 20 obscene emails which graphically described, among other things, parents sexually molesting their own children.

The Protect Act criminalizes the production, distribution, or receipt of, or the possession with intent to distribute obscene drawings, cartoons, sculptures, paintings or any other obscene visual representation of the sexual abuse of children.

After serving another sentence of 46 months for child porn and while on supervised release for the earlier conviction, Whorley was arrested after investigators from the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the FBI’s High Technology Investigation unit found child porn on his PC at work.

Joan Irvine, ASACP executive director, said Whorley's apparent addiction to child porn was fervent, as well as inexcusible.

“This man served nearly four years in prison for possession of child pornography, and yet his compulsion to view such material was so powerful that he continued to seek it out," Irvine said. "By working to eliminate child pornography from the internet, ASACP strives to prevent criminals from exploiting this kind of tragic and dangerous addiction to the sexual abuse of children.”

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