BOSTON- A Greenfield man was convicted late yesterday in federal court of possessing and receiving child pornography.
Louis Kevin Wieprecht, 57, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to a Superseding Information charging one count of possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of receiving such material.
Had the case proceeded to trial the Government’s evidence would have proven that in October 2010, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Wieprecht’s residence during which time they located, among other items, an HP Pavilion desktop computer. During the execution of the search warrant, Wieprecht admitted that he used his computer to collect videos of child pornography over peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and that he permitted other peer-to-peer users access to his child pornography files. Wieprecht’s computer was examined by law enforcement, and approximately 400 videos containing child pornography were found, some of which were received in August 2010. Many of the files were explicitly named and contained graphic depictions of very young children subjected to rape and sexual torture.
Judge Saylor scheduled sentencing for April 13, 2012. Wieprecht faces up to 10 years in federal prison on the possession count and between five and 20 years on the receipt count. He could receive up to a lifetime of supervised release following his incarceration, a $250,000 fine, and forfeiture of his computer media.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Bruce M. Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Boston, and David Guilbault, Chief of the Greenfield Police Department made the announcement today. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow of Ortiz’s Springfield Branch Office.
