Friday June 15, 2012

BRATTLEBORO -- A 66-year-old Brookline man will spend the next 10 years of his life in prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont, once he finishes his prison term, Richard Barker will have to spend the rest of his life under supervised release.

Barker, a former town moderator, school board chairman and local pharmacist in Brookline, possessed more than a thousand child pornography video and image files on two different computers, according to court documents.

Records also show that Barker downloaded and shared child pornography on the Internet.

Barker's Hill Road home was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in May 2011 after it was learned he was trading nude images of children on a file sharing program.

In 2002, Barker was convicted in Vermont State Court of sexual assault on a thirteen-year-old boy, stated the press release. He was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison, all suspended except for six months.

In February 2002, Barker's license was suspended by the Vermont Board of Pharmacy for failing to keep a record of drugs he dispensed over the course of three years.

According to court documents, he used the drugs on his sexual assault victim.

He was on probation for the sexual assault in 2011 when investigators learned he was sharing pornographic images on the Internet.

For

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the crime of possessing child pornography, Barker faced a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in jail, a maximum term of incarceration of 20 years, up to lifetime supervised release with a mandatory minimum of five years, and up to a $250,000 fine.

In sentencing Barker, Judge Christina C. Reiss cited the seriousness of the crime, including the graphic nature of his child pornography collection, and his prior state sexual assault conviction.

The investigation was led by the by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The prosecution was part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney's Offices and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.