Shelbyville man guilty in child pornography case

A Shelbyville man was sentenced to five years in federal prison for downloading video files containing child pornography.

Richard James Kunna Jr., 20, appeared in Chattanooga Monday before District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr., who passed a sentence of 60 months for one count of possession of child pornography.

Kunna was also placed on supervised probation for life and Judge Mattice ordered that he undergo a mental health evaluation to determine if he would benefit from sex offender related treatment.

Kunna could have received between 78 and 97 months imprisonment, according to the federal sentencing guidelines.

Four counts of receipt of child pornography were dropped after Kunna changed his plea to guilty last September.

Kunna was arrested last July as the result of a joint investigation by Detective Lt. Pat Mathis of the Shelbyville Police Department and Special Agent Richard Poff of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mathis said last year that the investigation began in November 2007, explaining that the FBI has a team that scans popular file sharing sites, hunting for "key words" that are associated with child pornography.

Getting some hits, federal authorities tracked the searches to an Internet address in Shelbyville and Special Agent Poff and Mathis interviewed Kunna.

"He did admit that he had downloaded some child pornography," Mathis said at the time, and authorities seized his computer and analyzed it.

Mathis said last year the computer check came up with around 150 images and a few video files "all pertaining to child pornography."

The original five-count federal indictment, filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee, listed four of the movie files, one with the title "2 yo girl getting raped."

Assistant Federal Defender Anthony Martinez asked for a lower sentence in court filings last month, noting that Kunna had no criminal history, and suggesting that the use of a computer "is almost part of the possession charge."

"The child pornography guidelines have continually increased based on moral outrage rather than protection, deterrence or circumstances of the offense," Martinez said.

However, Assistant U. S. Attorney John P. MacCoon stated some continue to possess child porn without the use of a computer and that using one "greatly enhances the further exposure and exploitation of the victims of child pornography."

"The images multiply exponentially in number, and tend to do so far into the future," MacCoon wrote. "Every time the image is sent to another consumer of child pornography the victim is again harmed."