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Man sentenced on child porn charges

The 27-year-old will serve 33½ months for images and videos on his computer.

By JORGE SANCHEZ
Published September 26, 2006

INVERNESS - A man was sentenced to nearly three years in state prison Monday for downloading images of child pornography to his personal computer.

Michael Wininger, 27, told the judge he "made a mistake" when he downloaded four videos and five still images of child pornography.

He was arrested by an investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in December who tracked him down by his computer searches and Internet provider address.

FDLE agent Michael Baute, a former Citrus County sheriff's detective, testified that he monitors the same file-sharing sites that are frequented by child porn file sharers and tracks down people who download files.

The FDLE then obtains subpoenas and search warrants for the suspects' computers and their shared folders.

Wininger entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors. The sentence calls for five years of a special form of probation for sex offenders, which includes compliance with all the requirements of the Jessica Lunsford Act and the Ryan White Act.

These prohibit him from owning pornography, impose a 10 p.m. curfew and prohibit him from working at or living near a school, among other requirements. He must also register as a sexual offender.

Wininger's lawyers, Bo Samargya and Bill Grant, attempted to persuade Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard to spare their client prison time and give him probation.

Grant told the judge that Wininger was a hard-working young man who made a mistake, calling it an isolated incident, and that he was not a pedophile who wanted to sexually molest children.

Howard was unaffected.

"I see your mother out there in the audience. I can't imagine her having to listen to this," the judge told Wininger. "I mean, even the titles of these images - they're an affront to decency to even have to read them into the record. These are images of children being raped."

Howard said the maximum sentence of five years per count was 45 years, and he felt that 33½ months was sufficiently lenient and took all the mitigating factors into account.

"And you deserve to do every day of that sentence," he told Wininger. "Child porn is like radioactive material. You just don't touch it."

Jorge Sanchez can be reached at sanchez@sptimes.com or 860-7313 or toll free at 1-800-333-7505 ext. 7313.

[Last modified September 25, 2006, 22:31:02]