By Hannah Poploskie
The sentencing of Neil John Krukow occurred on Friday afternoon for his conviction of possessing child pornography.
The prosecution called a witness to the stand briefly to testify about the event that led to the defendant’s arrest. The witness went to a McDonald’s restaurant on June 13, 2017, with his wife and two children. When he went to retrieve refills for his children he passed the table the defendant was sitting at, with one hand positioned on his thigh and the other on a laptop.
Playing on the laptop was an illicit video of children that was in plain view to any passersby, according to the witness. The witness confronted the man who tried to exit out of the window on the laptop playing the video. The witness’s wife reported the incident to the staff at the McDonald’s, who decided not to take any action. Frustrated, the couple followed the defendant out of the restaurant after he exited.
The next witness called was employed with the District Attorney’s High Tech Crime office. The defendant’s laptop was investigated by his unit for illicit images and videos. The witness was asked the difference between child pornography and child erotica. He clarified that these images were child pornography, which are more illicit in nature.
The laptop of Mr. Krukow contained 1,900 still images and 1,172 videos of child pornography. Under statute, each video counts as fifty images, putting the number of images near 9,000. These were 
available in a sharable file on the computer, and though it could not be ascertained if the files were shared, they were available to be if the defendant chose to.
A sampling of the images were examined by Judge Maguire for him to consider their nature when sentencing. Some of the images were labeled as “suspect reflections” because the defendant had filmed them off of another screen and his visage was visible as a reflection on the screen.
In final arguments, the People asked for the upper sentence of five years for this offense. It was insisted that the defendant was a menace to society and a message needed to be sent for this sort of crime. Some of the image contents were hinted at for their very graphic and disturbing nature. This nature as well as how vulnerable the victims were factored into the People’s recommendation.
The children in the images were as young as three years old and it was contended they are re-victimized each time the images were viewed and shared. The evidence of sharing hinted that he may have spread the images further, as well as the fact he was watching the videos in a public location were children frequented.
The defense asked for probation to be considered since it was a first time offense for Mr. Krukow, who is a senior. It was also pointed out that the defendant accepted responsibly for possessing the images early in the trial and this should be to his credit.
Judge Maguire discussed the possibility with probation, stating that the probation department recommended against it. The disturbing content and the amount of images made the judge hesitant to sentence him to probation. He also considered the location that the defendant was viewing the video as a factor. The judge did say, while the images he viewed were disturbing and had very young victims, he did not view all of the images and was unable to comment on how salacious in nature they were.
Taking in account the fact that the defendant was a first time offender, the judge sentenced him to the midterm sentence of serving two years and ordered him to pay $300 in restitution.
