A Greenwood photographer was sentenced to about five months in jail and a year on home detention after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
Professional photographer John Spurr, 65, 625 E. Pushville Road, was arrested more than a year ago after a woman found a nude photo of a young boy on Spurr’s computer. Spurr’s computer also had multiple pictures downloaded in a folder titled “Pornography.” About five photos included children younger than 10 who were nude or partially nude, police reports said.
At the time, Spurr was operating his own photography business, called Evergreen Photographic Illustration and Design, from his home, according to police reports. Police said at the time that they had found naked photos of only the one child that Spurr had taken. The rest of the photos were downloaded from the Internet.
Spurr told police he should have deleted the photos and that he had them due to his interest in medical conditions related to sexual development, the report said.
In 2014, Spurr was charged with one count of child exploitation and two counts of possession of child pornography, all felonies.
Last week, Spurr pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of child pornography. The child exploitation charge was amended to possession of child pornography after investigation on the case, Johnson County sex crimes deputy prosecutor Ryan Bland said.
Spurr was sentenced Thursday to 142 days in jail, 403 days of home detention in the community corrections program and one year of probation.
“It is an aggressive sentence for a first-time offender on a D-level (felony),” Johnson Circuit Judge Mark Loyd said.
For more than 500 days, Spurr will have constant supervision and high-level security before his year of probation, so Loyd thought it was an acceptable plea bargain, he said.
