Bay Area man caught with massive child porn stash off to prison

A 60-year-old Bay Area man has been sentenced to five years in prison for possessing what officials say was one of the largest collections of child porn ever found in Silicon Valley.|
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A 60-year-old Santa Clara County man has been sentenced to five years in prison for possessing what officials say was one of the largest collections of child pornography ever found in Silicon Valley.

The San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/1xWETM4 ) cites court documents that show Vella admitted he used his computer to download child pornography through a peer-to-peer network and saved the images on hard drives, discs and other digital media.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified 915 known victims from his collection.

Vella has been in federal custody since he pleaded guilty in August. He was sentenced on Tuesday.

After getting out, Vella will have a seven-year period of supervised release, participate in a sex offender treatment program and pay $29,500 in restitution.

___

Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.
Send a letter to the editor