A 67-year-old Jefferson County man has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after his second conviction in 10 years for trafficking in child pornography.
The sentence is lower than the minimum called for under federal sentencing guidelines for William Jennings Bryan Axsom II of White Hall.
His attorney, Omar Greene, requested the reduced term, citing his client’s age and chronic health problems, some of which stem from a gunshot he suffered as a robbery victim, court files show.
Greene also asked the judge to consider that no children were directly hurt by Axsom’s crimes and that there is no indication he has ever harmed a child.
Federal prosecutors did not oppose the 15-year term. Axsom also must spend the rest of his life on supervised release under the terms of the sentence imposed Thursday by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer.
Marshall also denied Axsom’s motion for a new trial.
Axsom was convicted in Little Rock federal court in May of distribution and possession of child pornography after a two-day jury trial.
Axsom, who continues to maintain his innocence, claimed that the illegal images found on his computer and related equipment were placed there against his will by glitches in the former filesharing network Limewire.
The FBI reported finding more than 300 images of children in sexually explicit situations on Axsom’s main computer hard drive, an external drive, DVDs, an iPod, a flash drive and three compact discs.
Axsom drew the attention of authorities in February 2010 when a Colorado police officer who was part of an FBI task force used special tracking software, coupled with searches using terminology common to child pornographers, to locate 187 images on Axsom’s computer that were suggestive of child pornography.
In January 2003, Axsom was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in Little Rock federal court in October 2002 to distribution of child pornography. In exchange for his guilty plea, federal prosecutors dropped a child-pornography possession charge.
According to court files, Axsom told federal agents who had gone to his home in March 1999 that he had downloaded child pornography and gave investigators access to his computer.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/05/2012