A 63-year-old Vancouver man was sentenced Friday in Clark County Superior Court to more than four years in prison for possessing child pornography.
Judge John Fairgrieve imposed a sentence of 50 months on three counts of first-degree possession of depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct in the state’s case against Miles Clifford Lane.
Deputy Prosecutor Deb Wechselblatt requested a 60-month sentence. She said Lane admitted during an interview that he’d been viewing child pornography for 15 years, which supported imposing a longer prison term.
Defense attorney Tony Lowe said that measurement of time was a misunderstanding. Lane admitted to viewing adult pornography for 15 years and had only recently started looking at children, Lowe said. The attorney also noted his client lacked criminal history.
Lane pleaded guilty to the charges Aug. 1. The state dismissed two identical possession counts, as well as another count of dealing the illegal materials, court records show.
“I got caught, and I’m sorry,” Lane told the judge. “I promise to never do it again … I should have never done it in the first place.”
Lane was arrested in April. According to a probable cause affidavit, a Homeland Security Investigation special agent, assigned to the Vancouver Police Department’s Digital Evidence Cybercrime Unit, went undercover to monitor people online who were distributing child pornography. During the probe, the agent focused on an IP, or internet protocol, address that was later tracked to Lane’s residence, the affidavit said.
On April 12, police executed a search warrant at Lane’s home after contacting him during a traffic stop, according to the affidavit.
In an interview with police, Lane admitted to downloading and possessing child porn on a desktop computer in his apartment, which no one else used, according to the affidavit. Lane said the computer would contain 100 to 200 child porn videos.
Detectives seized a computer tower that, after forensic examination and analysis, contained at least 10 videos depicting prepubescent children engaging in sexually explicit conduct, according to the affidavit.
Fairgrieve said he would accept Lane’s statement that the viewing of the child pornography started recently and acknowledged Lane was accepting responsibility.
“But the prosecutor is right. It’s the demand that creates the market” and victimizes children, Fairgrieve said.
