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Former CEO pleads guilty to child pornography

Posted on: Friday, 4 August 2006, 13:09 CDT

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former publishing executive who was once a member of New York's state education board pleaded guilty on Friday to possessing child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Robert Johnson, 60, who was publisher of Long Island's Newsday newspaper from 1986 to 1994, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on child pornography charges and 20 years for destroying more than 12,000 files from company computers after learning of the investigation in May 2004.

Johnson resigned abruptly that month as chief executive of the financial-printing firm Bowne & Co. Inc. and gave up his seat on New York State's Board of Regents which oversees education, citing personal reasons.

During his plea in Manhattan federal court, Johnson admitted possessing at least two images of child pornography and using a computer program called "Evidence Eliminator" to destroy the hard drives on company computers, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Johnson used Internet aliases to buy membership in websites that distributed child pornography and downloaded images including a movie titled "Real Child Rape," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said when he was charged.

Authorities said Johnson erased the computer files after a Bowne executive told him the company computer was under investigation.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation has led to the arrest of thousands of people on child-pornography charges in recent years. Many were found through the records of a Belorussian company that handled payments for several child-pornography sites.

Johnson will be sentenced on October 27. His lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

"This is personal matter between Mr Johnson and the authorities and we expect it to have no impact on our business or operations, said Chuck Burgess, a spokesman for Bowne & Co.

Source: REUTERS

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