Prosecutor Marc Bennett offered an unusual deal to Henry Nelson, a local photographer charged with having sex with an 8-year-old.
Bennett would accept a guilty plea to aggravated indecent liberties, reduced from rape, if Nelson would turn over his computer so authorities could search it without having to obtain a warrant. Bennett agreed not to charge him with extra crimes, but he could use anything he found to argue for a harsher sentence. Nelson complied.
The search turned up 30,000 sexually explicit photographs of minors — the most ever found in Wichita.
At sentencing today, Nelson’s lawyers asked for probation. After hearing about the child porn collection, Judge Joseph Bribiesca sent Nelson to prison.