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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a man’s sentence and convictions for child exploitation and possession of child pornography when it found the heinousness of his crimes warranted the sentence.
From July 2016 and August 2017, Joshua Kelp collected pornographic images of children under the age of 18, some of whom had not yet reached puberty. Kelp also traded these images with people on the internet. When confronted by law enforcement, Kelp admitted to collecting and distributing the pornographic images and said he had been in possession of child pornography for five years. He admitted to having roughly 1,000 images.
Kelp pleaded guilty to Level 4 felony child exploitation, Level 5 felony child exploitation, and Level 5 felony possession of child pornography, receiving a concurrent 10-year sentence. Kelp was ordered to comply with all rules of the Indiana Special Probation Conditions for Adult Sex Offenders, except for Rules 1, 5, 6, and 19.
Kelp appealed his sentence, also arguing that the trial court abused its discretion when it considered the trading of pornographic images of children on the internet to be an aggravator because trading the images is a material element of child exploitation.
The appellate court found that while Kelp’s assertion was correct, the error was harmless. It further noted that due to the thousands of “horrible” photographs that he possessed, it was confident the trial court would have reached the same 10-year sentence regardless of whether the court would have considered his trading of the images as an aggravator.
“Given the nature of the offense, the heinous images Kelp possessed, and the character of the offender, Kelp had been collecting these images for five years prior to being arrested, we cannot say Keller’s ten-year sentence is inappropriate,” Judge Melissa S. May wrote for the court in Joshua J. Kelp v. State of Indiana, 18A-CR-1719.
The appellate court did, however, agree with Kelp’s assertion that the Special Probation Condition 12 barring from visiting “businesses that sell sexual devices or aids” was unconstitutionally vague and overly broad, as it could apply to such businesses as drugstores. The COA thus remanded the case to the trial court for clarification of the final clause of Special Probation Condition 12.
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