HAMILTON — A Middletown man was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison and fined $10,000 for hundreds of photographs police confiscated from his home computer last year.

        Timothy O'Connor, 56, had pleaded no contest to 15 criminal charges involving sexually explicit photos of children. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Patricia Oney in June found him guilty of the charges, and sentenced him Tuesday.

        “I think it was a very appropriate sentence due to the type of obscene materials that were involved,” Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said. “It's obvious from cases like these that obscenity exists in Butler County.”

        The charges were six counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, four counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor, four counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor and one count of receiving stolen property. The photographs involved children as young as 4 and depicted boys and girls in various types of sexual activity, authorities said. It is not known where the pictures originated.

        “When I saw these photographs it literally woke me up in the middle of the night,” Mr. Piper said. “It was so disturbing that I literally couldn't sleep.”

        Mr. Piper said the case illustrates the need for the task force he recently created to prosecute pornography cases.

        “This case is significant because it let's the public know that we to need to do something about this child exploitation that's taking place,” Mr. Piper said. “And the consumerism of this child exploitation is what feeds the money train for the supplier. We just can't afford to drop our guard on these type of cases.”

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