A Montana man captured last year in Arkansas has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for transporting child pornography across state lines.
John Malcolm Nealy, 66, of Florence, Mont., was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes in Texarkana to the term with no chance of parole and a lifetime of supervised release. Nealy pleaded guilty April 15 to one count of transporting child pornography.
Nealy, already a registered sex offender in Montana after a 2005 child-pornography conviction and who was wanted by the U.S. Marshal's Service for violations of his federal supervised release, was arrested in September 2012 after being found at White Oak Lake State Park in Nevada County, according to a statement by U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas Conner Eldridge. A search of his vehicle turned up computer equipment and memory cards containing about 60 videos of child pornography, some portraying "sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence," Eldridge said.
Nealy admitted to Homeland Security Investigations agents that he had fled Montana with the videos to avoid an arrest on probation violations.
"This case is extremely disturbing due to the fact that this Defendant had already been convicted of a similar crime in another state and instead of being rehabilitated or learning a lesson from his prior conviction, he chose to continue his illicit behavior progressing into viewing images that were even more disturbing and more violent," Eldridge said in the statement. "This Defendant was brought to justice, and we will continue to work aggressively to prosecute these types of cases to the fullest extent of the law for the sake of these innocent children.”