A Federal Inmate Asks: Was My Prosecution Rational?
Hello All,I am serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison for production of child pornography. This is my story.When I was 25 years old, I met a girl on an adult BDSM site who turned out to be a 16-year-old minor. After talking with her online for several months (and learning her true age), I agreed to meet with her in person. We met on two separate occasions, a year apart. Both times, I picked her up, drove her to a local motel, filmed us having sex, and then drove her home. All this was done with her knowledge (we'd planned it out beforehand) and enthusiastic participation. She was 16 the first time and 17 the second. After our two hookups, we parted ways amicably.Some time later, the girl went "missing', i.e. ran away from home to live in a different state with a guy she'd met on another BDSM site. She didn't tell her mom where she was going. Because she was still a minor at the time (17½), this triggered an Amber alert and a missing person search. The feds got involved and subpoenaed her Gmail account records. There, they found her old email exchanges with me, along with screenshots I'd sent her of our encounters, which she had requested from me. They then proceeded to track me down and arrest me about 7 months later. I had no idea they were coming. I simply opened my front door one morning and my life was over, just like that. By that point the girl had already been found living in NYC with her new boyfriend and working at a sex club. She turned 18 the same month I was arrested.I was originally charged with production and distribution of CP plus enticement of a minor. This carried a maximum sentencing exposure of life plus 50 years for a 1st time offender, which I was (yes, you're reading that right). After having raided my home and seized my electronic devices, the feds accused me of (but never charged me with) having a large collection of underage porn. I did, in fact, have such a collection and admitted it, but pointed out that underage porn was only one o