Probation for owner of grisly porn site

Miami Herald
Apr. 23, 2006

BARTOW - (AP) -- A man who ran a pornographic website that included grisly photographs of war dead taken by U.S. troops was sentenced Friday to five years probation, his attorney said.

Chris Wilson, 28, pleaded no contest in January to five misdemeanor charges of possession of obscene materials, and the state dismissed 296 other similar charges.

Wilson's website gave soldiers free access to pornography in exchange for posting pictures from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Polk County sheriff's officials said Wilson's arrest in October stemmed from the site's sexually explicit content, not the pictures of war dead.

The plea agreement does not prohibit Wilson from using the content of his former site, although ownership of the Web address was transferred to the sheriff's office, defense attorney Larry Walters said. The site is now closed.

''He agreed to stay out of the adult website business for the term of his probation,'' Walters said.

Instead, Wilson will create a new website focusing on obscenity prosecutions and First Amendment issues, Walters said.

Wilson, a former Eagle Lake police officer, also agreed to pay investigative costs, Walters said.

Although the website launched a Pentagon investigation into how war zone photos of charred and dismembered bodies described as victims of U.S. attacks could have surfaced, military investigators did not pursue criminal charges against Wilson.