Mountlake Terrace man sentenced to 10 years for child porn

SEATTLE — A Mountlake Terrace man was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 10 years in prison and 20 years of supervised release for possessing and distributing child pornography.

Christopher Lee Wood, 41, was using peer-to-peer file sharing software to download and send images of child rape, prosecutors wrote.

Detectives from Seattle and federal Homeland Security Investigations, working with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, served a search warrant on Wood’s home in May 2018.

Wood initially agreed to talk and provided access to his computers, according to charging papers. He said he used the internet to read the news and watch YouTube.

When asked if he downloaded videos or music, he requested an attorney and stopped answering questions.

Detectives found child pornography on a desktop computer in a side room and on a 16GB thumb drive locked in a safe underneath Wood’s bed. In all, they discovered 42 images and 69 videos showing minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Later, the investigation uncovered seven images that had been deleted on Wood’s computer, depicting a 5-year-old girl.

A woman confirmed the girl was her daughter and reported that the child had stayed at Wood’s home one night several years ago. The girl told investigators she recognized Wood’s bedroom, and some of the items in the picture, but couldn’t remember the details of what had taken place.

Those pictures were a “critical reason” for the 10-year sentence, a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Wood pleaded guilty in July.

At the sentencing, Judge Richard Jones said that a child’s trauma is multiplied every time someone shares and sees the images.

Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.