Appeals Court Upholds Conviction

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of a former New Town man sentenced to more than five years in prison on child pornography charges.

Stephen O’Berry was convicted by a federal court jury in 2005 on charges of receiving and possessing child porn and was sentenced to five years and three months in prison. Authorities said he was a professional computer technician and downloaded computer files containing child pornography between May 2003 and July 2004.

Court documents said officers found more than 1,300 images of child porn on O’Berry’s computer. In his appeal, O’Berry denied knowing about it and argued the government failed to prove its case.

“The government presented evidence that users of a computer belonging to O’Berry and kept in his bedroom had subscribed to news groups with pornographic titles and had received, accessed, manipulated and not deleted a vast amount of obvious and explicit child pornography,” the 8th U.S. Circuit Court said in its ruling Monday.

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