Mitchell Phillip Wolf was sentenced today, Thursday, to 65 months in prison for possession of child pornography, according to a release issued by Acting United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson.
Wolf, 60, of Danville, pleaded guilty on July 8, 2015, to possessing child pornography. According to the plea agreement, Wolf admitted to knowingly possessing approximately 50,000 digital files depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Wolf admitted to intentionally saving the image and video files to his personal desktop computer and to assorted CD-ROMs and DVDs that he stored in his home office and bedroom. On many of the CD-ROMs and DVDs, Wolf hand-labeled their content with terms consistent with child pornography, such as “PTHC” for “pre-teen hardcore.” Wolf admitted to downloading the digital files from the Internet using an online peer-to-peer file sharing program. Wolf was charged by an information on April 3, 2015, with a single count of possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B).
The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Phyllis J. Hamilton, U.S. District Judge, following a guilty plea to the charged count. In addition to the prison term, Judge Hamilton also ordered Wolf to serve a ten-year period of supervised release, including conditions prohibiting his use of computers and Internet, prohibiting him from frequenting locations where children may be present, and requiring him to submit to searches upon request of law enforcement, among other conditions. Wolf will begin serving the prison term on January 4, 2016.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Wade M. Rhyne is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Janice Pagsanjan. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children’s Task Force, and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office.
Life in prison without the possibility of parole. If they can’t be cured (according to the experts), it’s the only way to protect our children. Tougher laws for pedophiles.
These are tough moral cases if these perps were “born that way” and can’t be fixed. Especially when they haven’t directly harmed anyone, as here. Maybe physical castration plus 24/7 GPS tracking for life? I could probably be convinced that euthanasia is the best option. For pedophiles that physically touch/harm kids, then death penalty is the best solution. It is extraordinarily expensive to hold these people under civil detention following their criminal sentences.