ATHOL — Arthur Cummings has been sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison, with five years supervised release two months after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.
Cummings, 49, was sentenced Tuesday in Worcester’s U.S. District Court and turned over to U.S. Marshals on a felony count of possessing child pornography. In addition, Cummings was ordered by federal Judge Timothy S. Hillman to pay a $100 fine and forfeit various electronic storage devices to authorities including a Dell laptop, eight thumb drives, seven hard drives and a few SD cards.
He was arrested by federal agents last March following an investigation into people who viewed or downloaded child pornography on the “dark web,” a part of the internet only accessible by special software allowing users to remain anonymous.
More than 10 videos and at least 100 images of child pornography were discovered on a laptop inside Cummings’ home around the time of his arrest, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
At one point in Cummings’ year-long court proceeding, he asked a judge to throw out the case, insisting the government distributed pornographic content when it seized a child porn website and operated it for a few weeks as part of the investigation.
To that end, Cummings filed a motion on Dec. 14, 2016, to suppress evidence and a motion to dismiss the case, claiming the FBI illegally installed malware on his computer, cited as “outrageous government conduct.” Cummings said the FBI distributed child porn from the Playpen website — Cummings was a member of that site, according to U.S. Attorney Mark J. Grady — it seized and controlled for several months early 2015.
“The unprecedented nature and scope of the FBI’s distribution of contraband in connection with this case has no legal justification or excuse and offends common standards of decency,” the motion said.
In response, the government argued it received a judge’s approval to use a “network investigative technique,” and operated Playpen to stop “the use of emerging technologies to facilitate the creation, distribution and consumption of child pornography.”
At the time, Grady said the use of such programs had previously led to the identification or rescue of 38 children from abuse.
This past May, Hillman dismissed Cummings’ motion saying “I do not find that the government engaged in outrageous conduct that warrant’s dismissal of the charges against the defendant in this case.”
Following Hillman’s dismissal decision, Cummings changed his plea of not-guilty to guilty.
You can reach Andy Castillo
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