A Center Township man who the Porter County Sheriff’s Police said was found in possession of hundreds of images of child-pornographic images may serve no time in prison, under a plea agreement reached with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Ari Spector, 47, with a listed address on Beargrass Court, has pleaded guilty to one count of child exploitation, a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to eight years; and one count of possession of child pornography, a Class D felony punishable by a term of six months to three years.

In exchange for his plea, nine other counts of possession of child pornography would be dismissed.

Under the plea agreement, Spector would be sentenced to eight years on the first count and three years on the second but all 11 years—less time already served—would be suspended and served on formal probation.

The plea agreement also stipulates that Spector may transfer his probation and obligations to the State of Illinois, where he would be required to register as a sex offender and submit to HIV testing.

According to the plea agreement, Spector has “spent almost eight months of time in-patient” and is currently receiving therapy and treatment for “his sexual addiction” from a Chicago therapist.

According to the probable cause affidavit, on April 27, 2011, the PCSP received an anonymous report from the WeTip system alleging Spector to be in possession of child pornography.

That report specifically named Spector, gave his address, and described him physically, as well as provided a username and password for access to a website, the affidavit stated. After using that information to access the website, an investigator observed the account holder’s name to be Ari Spector and the inbox to contain 1,094 messages, some of which had attachments “that are of child pornography” and “that reference the trading of pictures,” the affidavit stated.

A search warrant was subsequently obtained and executed at Spector’s residence on April 28 and five computers seized. Those computers were examined by the Indiana State Police and were found to have “hundreds of photographs and videos of child pornography”, some “dating from as far back as 2005,” the affidavit said. In addition, Spector “created a management system using folders with appropriate dates as the folder names.”

Posted 1/8/2013