Carpentersville man sentenced for possessing child porn

A Carpentersville man was sentenced to seven years in prison this week for trafficking in child porn.

Peter Thomas, 32, of the 3300 block of Blue Ridge in Carpentersville, could have faced up to 14 years, but U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning sentenced him to the lesser amount after hearing of Thomas' difficult childhood and reading several letters of support from professors at DePaul University and Elgin Community College, where Thomas attended school.

The U.S. attorney's office, represented by Joel Hammerman, alleged Thomas had hundreds of child porn images in his possession, some of them sado-masochistic, when arrested in the summer of 2006. Thomas pleaded guilty earlier this year.

According to a court filing by Thomas' lawyer, Alan Blumenthal, Thomas was abandoned by his mother at a young age and then raised in a repressive church where even casual contact between boys and girls was grounds for dismissal.

When two young girls were molested by church elders, the girls were punished for "seducing" the elders, and the church leaders went unpunished, his lawyer wrote.

"He was raised in a repressive atmosphere of fundamentalist beliefs that, while such might serve some well, cannot shock anyone that it produces some in an arrested state of social/sexual development," Blumenthal wrote.

"I am remorseful beyond words," wrote Thomas, who had tried to get his girlfriend to cancel their Internet service weeks before he was arrested. She also wrote to Judge Manning, saying she didn't realize at the time it was a cry for help.

Thomas recently earned a master's degree at DePaul. He was sentenced Thursday.