The Federal court of Springfield sentenced a Christian rock musician and singer Victor Stepus to 7 years in prison for downloading, storing and viewing child pornography.
On Friday, the judge, U.S. district court mark G. Mastroianni sentenced a 51-year-old Steppa to 7 years in prison and 10 years supervised release. In November 2019 Stepp pleaded guilty to receipt and possession of child pornography. Before that, in August 2015, the musician was arrested after a search in his house. On a home computer Steppa investigators found more than 8,000 images and 33 videos with sexual and violent content, including eight-year-old girls who are held in slavery.
Stepus indicted during the investigation by the Federal authorities the content of a secret web site Playpen, which spread child pornography and discussed topics related to violence against children. On the Internet portal, located in the «darknet», it was possible to get anonymous access via Tor browser. After the investigators got the logs with the Playpen, it became known that Steps actively visited the resource within six months in the period from 2014 to 2015. He admitted that for several years have been in online for downloading prohibited content «two to three times a week.»
Representatives of the Ukrainian churches in Massachusetts were supported Steppa, calling «good Christian», and requested the court to allow the singer to live in one of the local churches. Stepp wrote the judge a letter in which he asked to be deported to his home.
The investigation Steppa was opened in the framework of the project of the U.S. Department of justice «Safe childhood», established in 2006. The project aims to protect children from any form of violence, exploitation and abuse, and aims to identify pedophiles.
