Child Porn Gets British Man 30-Year Prison Sentence

A 39-year-old British national arrested when he attempted to fly from Hilo to Honolulu with child pornography was sentenced today to 30 years in prison.

Appearing before US District Judge J. Michael Seabright in Honolulu, Simon Jasper McCarty was also ordered to pay more than $98,000 in restitution and remain on supervised release for the rest of his life.

McCarty was arrested on Aug. 5, 2008 with computer media that contained 400 photographs and nearly 200 videos of child pornography. Roughly 60 of the videos contained images of three prepubescent boys that he admitted molesting outside of the US.

McCarty brought the computer media with him to Hawaii from the United Kingdom the month before his arrest.

He pleaded guilty in federal court in January to producing child pornography.

The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.