During a four to five year period beginning in 2001, William Irey engaged in sex acts with girls aged four to sixteen, typically in Cambodian brothels. In some instances he had children flown to him from Cambodia into China. Irey photographed and videotaped his abuse and torture of the girls, and he used this material for personal pleasure, and as currency to gain access to child pornography sites. In 2006, federal agents intercepted incriminating e-mails from Irey to one such site. During a search of his home, agents found a hard drive containing 1,200 photos of him abusing at least 50 underage girls, as well as hundreds of other explicit photos that did not show his face. He was arrested in December 2006, and was charged with sexually exploiting children. He pleaded guilty in July 2007, and subsequently was sentenced to 17.5 years imprisonment. The government appealed the sentence and eventually had the sentence increased to 30 years, the statutory maximum.
1st Instance: Court: United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Following a guilty plea, the petitioner was convicted of production of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(c). He was sentenced to 210 months of imprisonment, to be followed by a life term of supervised release.
2nd Instance: Court: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit – (March 30, 2009)
Believing that the sentence imposed on defendant was too lenient, the government appealed the defendant’s sentence of 210 months’ imprisonment plus a life term of supervised release.
The 2nd instance court stated that: “[i]f we were responsible for sentencing the defendant in the first instance, we might have imposed a different sentence: we clearly believe that sentences other than the one actually imposed might also be reasonable. But we must respect the district courts sentencing, and we accept that the sentence imposed by the district court is within the outside borders of reasonable sentences for this case. We cannot conclude that the sentencing judge abused his discretion.”
As a consequence, the court reluctantly affirmed the original court decision, stating the sentence was indeed reasonable.
3rd Instance: Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (sitting en banc) – (July 29, 2010)
The Court reaffirmed the original courts decision, but increased the sentence to 30 years on the grounds of the seriousness of the offense and the “long-standing, long-term engagement” of the defendant on the criminal activity.
Defendant pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of children.
4th Instance Court: U.S. Supreme Court
The United States Supreme Court denied the writ of certiorari, thus refusing to hear the case. This means the last ruling on the case is the one pertaining to the 3rd instance, in which the sentence was 30 years of imprisonment.
United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida
http://www.law.umich.edu/clinical/HuTrafficCases/Pages/CaseDisp.aspx?caseID=473
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200810997.pdf
http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200810997op2.pdf
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/08-10997/200810997ord-2011-02-28.html
http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2010/0responses/2010-0727.resp.pdf
http://www.flmd.uscourts.gov/notableCases/Opinions/Irey_FINAL_post-sentencing_opinion_with_Apps.pdf
Child abuse, pedophilia, and child pornography.
Interesting appellate case with controversial legal reasoning on sentencing guidelines, and a judge’s discretion.