Probation for a Republican activist and fundraiser who pleaded guilty to child porn charges doesn't sit well with the executive director of Adult Sites Against Child Pornography.
"Pete Townshend was put on the Sexual Offender Registry for five years for just doing research," said Joan Irvine, firing off a blast against Richard A. Delgaudio, who was sentenced to two years probation May 12 after he pleaded guilt to taking sexually-explicit photographs of a 16-year-old girl he paid by the hour in a Baltimore motel. "If Delgaudio was not a politician, or if he was someone in the adult entertainment industry, how many years would he be spending in jail?"
Irvine called the probation sentence "an insult to the hard work" of groups who fight child porn in and out of government.
Delgaudio "acknowledges the acute moral shortcomings of his conduct and he will continue intense self-examination, and professional and spiritual counseling," said Bruce Fein, a prominent legal commentator who was part of his defense team, to the sentencing judge, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John M. Glynn.
But Glynn also ordered that any violation of his probation terms could get Delgaudio sentences to the maximum ten years in prison, according to the Washington Post. And the probation ruling also stripped Delgaudio of his ability to appeal, the newspaper said.
