Former Kinston City Councilman Will Barker is spending the better part of the next six weeks in jail in Bolivia.
Senior U.S. District Judge James C. Fox ordered Barker detained following his guilty plea in Wilmington on April 29. Barker was then transported to the Brunswick County Detention Center until his sentencing, which is scheduled for the week of Aug. 5.
Barker pled to one federal charge of receipt of child pornography. By pleading, Baker admitted to using interstate commerce to procure sexually explicit images of minors.
A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said a laptop seized at Barker’s home during a Nov. 29, 2012 search turned up “more than 4,000 images and 100 videos of child pornography.”
He initially faced 10 state counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, but the case moved up to federal court under a U.S. Department of Justice program called Project Safe Childhood, which facilitates intergovernmental and inter-agency cooperation to prosecute people suspected of sexual exploitation of children.
Much of the program’s structure came through the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 and the Justice Department’s National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction in 2010.
According to the DOJ, “Working closely with each other, we will pool our intelligence and resources to ensure that those offenders who seek to entice and compromise our children are brought to justice.”
Don Connelly, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said in an email the court will set a specific sentencing date at some point before the week of Aug. 5 arrives.
The sentencing hearing will be in Fox’s court in Wilmington at 10 a.m. on the day selected.
Barker faces a sentence of between five and 20 years in federal prison, up to a $250,000 fine and lifetime supervised release. Supervised release, unlike probation, is meant to be used in addition to prison time.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 and Wes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.