COVINGTON—A 56-year-old Slidell man pled guilty Monday to 35 counts of possession of pornography involving juveniles, two counts of production of pornography involving juveniles, and one count of aggravated incest after an investigation turned up more than 350 such images on his computer. Each possession count represents 10 images.
Judge Elaine DiMiceli, sitting in temporarily for Judge William J. Burris, sentenced the defendant, Patrick Emerson, to 20 years in prison on the possession charges and 25 years on the production and incest charges. All of the sentences are to run concurrently without the benefit of parole, probation or suspension of sentence.
Assistant District Attorney William Macke handled the case, which was investigated by Brian D. Brown, an investigator in the Louisiana Attorney General’s Cyber Crime Unit. Brown’s investigation with peer-to-peer file sharing services led to Emerson, who cooperated, showed officers the location of the child pornography in his computer room, and told them that he had been downloading those kinds of pictures for more than 30 years.
The search warrant netted about 1,000 images, 350 of which were deemed pornographic, depicting children in a range of ages, from toddlers to 13 years old. The production and incest charges stem from photos Emerson took of a child related to him.