Staff photo / Ed Runyan Carlos Gonzalez, 35, of Struthers, left, is seen with his attorney, J.P. Laczko, at Gonzalez’s sentencing hearing Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Gonzalez had over 19,000 images depicting child pornography on his electronic devices, leading to a five-year prison sentence.

YOUNGSTOWN — A lot of times, the words used to describe child pornography can mask just how horrifying the images and videos depicted truly are.

Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews was not going to run the risk that she would mask the true nature of the images and videos Carlos Gonzalez, 35, of Struthers, had on 21 electronic devices seized by law enforcement at the home where he was living.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty to 10 counts of pandering obscenities involving a minor, and the prosecutor’s office recommended a six-year prison sentence. Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito sentenced Gonzalez to five years in prison Tuesday.

Andrews said before she started prosecuting child pornography charges, she thought child pornography might show nude teenage girls. “I didn’t know the extent of those things,” she said of the images and videos.

She told D’Apolito she thought he should hear some of the descriptions of the images and videos Gonzalez possessed “just so the court can understand the magnitude of that.”

Then she proceeded to read the file names on some of the images and videos. This newspaper chose not to share the descriptions of the pictures and videos because of their graphic nature.

The descriptions typically gave the age of the child depicted as being pre-teen.

“That’s just some of the contents of those photos and images,” Andrews said.

Then she addressed the argument frequently made for going easy on individuals who look at child pornography — that the defendant isn’t personally victimizing anyone.

“But each one of these photos and videos depicts a child being sexually abused, whether it be raped or gross sexual imposition. Each one of these children is a victim.

“These are mostly different children in each of these photos, which gives us nearly 19,437 victims that this defendant was participating in, that he was provoking on all of his devices in these images,” Andrews said. “Though he is not the one who is partaking in these acts, he is perpetuating the sexual abuse and this business of engaging in these crimes with these minors.”

Andrews said the case began with a cyber tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force that was traced back to Gonzalez’s computer. A search warrant at the house where Gonzalez was staying resulted in investigators taking possession of 21 electronic devices belonging to Gonzalez containing “a significant amount of child pornography just in general but there also were many images including minors,” she said.

“Between the devices, there were 18,740 images and 697 videos, which comes to a total of 19,437 total files depicting child pornography,” Andrews said.

DEFENSE

When Andrews was done, Gonzalez’s attorney, J.P. Laczko said his client understands that he will have to register every six months for 25 years after he leaves prison as a Tier 2 sex offender.

He noted that evaluations were done to determine whether Gonzalez was competent to stand trial and whether he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

The evaluation showed that Gonzalez graduated from high school with a grade-point average of about 1.8, on the lower end of his class, and he took classes for a learning disability.

He was expelled from school and was home-schooled to finish his education because he had pornography in school, Laczko said.

“Whether we want to believe it or not, pornography is an addiction like drugs, alcohol or any other type of addiction,” and that is Gonzalez’s addiction, Laczko said.

“It’s not a defense. It’s possibly a way to explain a lot of what happened in this case,” Laczko said. The amount of pornography involved in this case indicates that Gonzalez “can’t just look at one version or one website.”

He said an investigator from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation said this was one of the largest amounts of pornography she has had to review in a long time.

Laczko said Gonzalez had gone through the breakup of his marriage and was “depressed and suicidal,” even though he was gainfully employed.

He noted that the victims in this case, “they’re not victims that were in any way touched or affected by him.”

JUDGE

Judge D’Apolito then addressed how serious possessing child pornography is. He said “for that industry to survive, aprosper, they need people like Mr. Gonzalez who fuel it. And if not for people like that, there wouldn’t be an industry that will exploit, kidnap, hurt these children. So while I understand your point that he didn’t hurt them directly, he hurt them nonetheless.”

The judge said Gonzalez looked at such images “extensively, and I don’t only understand that what he did was wrong. But also I need to look at it that if he went this far with these videos and pictures, what might that lead to as far as him seeking more?

“When does the pornography not do it for him? When does he need to actually find these children and act out these things he only sees in these videos and pictures?”

Have an interesting story? Email Ed Runyan at erunyan@vindy.com