Area man sentenced in child porn bust
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By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: December 8, 2009
A Poultney man has been sentenced to serve 27 months in federal prison for possessing child pornography and sending it to at least one undercover agent online, according to the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Vermont on Monday.
John Ashback was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Burlington by Judge William K. Sessions, III, who also ordered the 70-year-old to serve five years of supervised release at the conclusion of his prison term, according to federal prosecutors.
In March 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Ashback on two counts of possessing and distributing pornography showing minors as young as age 9 and in September of that same year, Ashback pleaded guilty to possessing it, according to the a press release on the sentencing.
In 2005, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle, Wash., began monitoring Internet users involved in obtaining and trading child pornography through the Google "Hello" file-sharing and chatting software, according to a March 2008 affidavit by ICE special agent Ken Labrie.
As part of the operation, an agent in Seattle set up an undercover identity or screen name to track possible offenders.
In 2007, the agent was contacted by a child protection agency in England that a user with the name "ido4u" was trading child porn.
Investigators tracked the name to Ashback and started chatting with him.
Following numerous chats, Ashback sent undercover agents in Seattle and England three to five images of child pornography and a more than minute-long video, according to court records.
Investigators tracked down Ashback's individual computer address that provided his home address and issued a search warrant, according to federal prosecutors.
Ashback's home computer contained images and videos of child pornography, according to prosecutors.
U.S. Attorney for Vermont, Tristam Coffin, noted that the prosecution was part of the nationwide child protection initiative, the U.S. Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood.
For more information, go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Fuller, the lead prosecutor in the case, declined comment on the case.
Ashback's conditions of supervised release were not available at press time.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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