Kansas man pleads guilty of collecting over 3 million child pornography photos

November 16th 2010

A Kansas man on Monday admitted in U.S. District Court in Wichita that he collected more than 3 million child pornography photographs, prosecutors said.

Donald W. Schmidt, 74, Wichita, Kansas, pleaded guilty to one count of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography.

In his plea, Schmidt admitted that he was trading child pornography over the Internet via a peer-to-peer network when a police investigator in Boynton Beach, Florida, downloaded child pornography from Schmidt’s computer.

In March, Wichita police served a search warrant at Schmidt’s home in Wichita, finding two computers hooked up to separate Internet service providers and eleven banker’s boxes containing boxes of CDs and DVDs.

Forensic analysis identified an estimated 3 million-plus images of child porn on the computers, external drives and disks.

Schmidt admitted using the peer-to-peer program to distribute child pornography, chatting online about molesting children and organizing his child porn collection to be stored on disks.

Schmidt faces a penalty of not less than five years and not more than 20 years in federal prison during his sentencing, which is scheduled for January 31, 2011. In addition, he will be facing a fine of up to $250,000 on the distribution charge and a maximum penalty of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000 on the possession.