Bedford man gets 15 years in prison for child pornography

Posted Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
A

Have more to add? News tip? Tell us

By BILL MILLER

wmiller@star-telegram.com

A Bedford man was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for receiving more than 125,000 images of child pornography, some of them depicting scenes of sadomasochism, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Paul Hicks, 68, pleaded guilty in March to the charges.

But during his sentencing hearing on Thursday, a federal agent testified that the final inventory of Hicks' collection included 2 million sexual images of children, including infants and toddlers.

The agent is assigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the news release.

Also during the hearing, U.S. District Judge Reed C. O'Connor ordered that Hicks serve a lifetime of supervised release and register as a sex offender.

Hicks, who was arrested Feb. 11, admitted receiving images by subscribing to child pornography Web sites, the news release stated.

Hicks, who at the time lived in Carrollton, "admitted that some of the images depicted prepubescent minors engaged in sexual acts, and some portrayed sadistic and/or masochistic conduct," according to the U.S. attorney's office.

BILL MILLER, 817-390-7684

Looking for comments?

Join the discussion

The Star-Telegram is pleased to provide this opportunity for you to share your thoughts and observations about news topics. We enjoy lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask that you refrain from using profanity, racist or hate speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising or external links or including remarks that are off topic. To post comments, you must be a registered user of Star-Telegram.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.