Jason Kotowski, The Bakersfield Californian –
A former teacher who worked at several local schools was sentenced Monday to three years and one month in prison for possession of child pornography.
Michael Scott Cooper, 43, of Bakersfield, was arrested in October 2010 and pleaded guilty in May of this year to possessing images and videos depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. In addition to the prison term, he has to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Cooper’s attorney, Kyle Humphrey, said people charged with Cooper’s crimes typically receive five years or more in prison.
“I know that as far as these cases go, I got him a fantastic outcome,” Humphrey said.
Still, Humphrey said he’s saddened that the root causes of these types of offenses aren’t being addressed. A more appropriate sentence, Humphrey said, would have been a short stay in jail followed by intense therapy.
Many of these cases are a result of marital and financial stresses in which a person goes online and starts looking at pornography, and eventually checks out everything he can online, Humphrey said. They’re just normal people who go astray, he said.
“I got to know my client, and I’d sit down and have dinner with him anytime because he’s a great guy,” Humphrey said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stanley Boone could not be reached for comment.
Cooper was arrested Oct. 7, 2010 following a lengthy investigation by Bakersfield police and the FBI that involved his work as a special education teacher in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Cooper was a former resource specialist at Loudon Elementary School.
A federal complaint said Cooper took cell phone photos of a pre-pubescent female student and e-mailed the images to his personal laptop computer. Cooper’s wife discovered the pictures — which showed a young girl wearing shorts with her legs slightly apart — and confronted her husband, the complaint says.
She then went to police, who seized computers, flash drives and secure digital cards from Cooper’s residence, according to the complaint. Authorities found more than 600 photos of pre-pubescent girls in various stages of nudity and posed in sexually provocative positions.
Cooper obtained the images online, an FBI spokeswoman said at the time.
