Monday, March 17, 2008

Grand Prairie man found guilty in child porn case

By JASON TRAHAN

A Grand Prairie computer technician and convicted child molester was found guilty Tuesday on federal charges for taking a laptop computer containing child pornography into Canada.


A federal jury in Dallas took 40 minutes to find Kevin Dewayne Moore guilty of possessing and transporting child pornography.


Several videos of elementary school-age boys and girls being forced to perform sex acts were found on Mr. Moore’s laptop by customs agents at Ottawa International Airport in September 2005. He was entering the country on business.


Mr. Moore, 45, first came under suspicion during routine questioning by customs agents, testimony this week revealed. When border authorities asked him whether the laptop contained prohibited materials, Mr. Moore told them that his brother often used the computer.


“This is a man who had nothing to hide,” defense attorney Carlton McLarty said in describing his client’s cooperation with Canadian customs agents when he was initially questioned. “When he saw the child porn on there, he got angry. That’s a natural reaction of someone who sees something that they didn’t know was on there.”


But testimony from experts and Mr. Moore’s family revealed that Mr. Moore loaded the child porn movies onto his laptop off of a CD he kept in a collection at his Grand Prairie home.


“He couldn’t be without his stash for five days,” prosecutor Aisha Saleem said during her closing argument. “This man had deviant interests.”


Last year, Mr. Moore was convicted in Dallas County state court for the 2003 aggravated sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl. He also was convicted by a Canadian court and spent about five months in jail there before he was returned to the U.S. for prosecution in Dallas.


U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor will sentence Mr. Moore on the federal conviction June 17. He faces up to 20 years in prison for the transportation conviction and up to 10 years for possession.

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