Joseph Patrick Toomey Sentenced in U.S. District Court
The United States Attorney's Office announced that during a federal court session in Missoula, on September 29, 2011, before U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy, JOSEPH PATRICK TOOMEY, a 29-year-old resident of Missoula, appeared for sentencing. TOOMEY was sentenced to a term of:
Prison: 36 months
Special Assessment: $100
Forfeiture: computer
Supervised Release: 10 years
TOOMEY was sentenced in connection with his guilty plea to possession of child pornography.
In an Offer of Proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Cyndee L. Peterson, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
As part of an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigation, the Missoula County Sheriff's Office received a referral that an IP address in Missoula had child pornography files available for download. A detective determined the IP subscriber was at TOOMEY's residence. A search warrant was obtained for TOOMEY's residence in Missoula.
On March 8, 2010, the search warrant was served. Agents interviewed TOOMEY who resided in the residence with his parents and adult brother. TOOMEY admitted to downloading child pornography.
A forensic examination of TOOMEY's computer revealed that the drive contained the BitTorrent peer-to-peer application. BitTorrent does not operate like the peer-to-peer application LimeWire but instead requires the user to search for Torrent files on the Internet (often through Torrent websites); the Torrent files are downloaded from the Internet and are then put into the BitTorrent application which actually downloads the actual image/video/file from BitTorrent servers. The examiner located files on the computer which he determined were downloaded via the Internet that depict images and videos portraying children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The forensic examiner determined TOOMEY possessed the relevant files between March 5 and March 8, 2010.
Because there is no parole in the federal system, the "truth in sentencing" guidelines mandate that TOOMEY will likely serve all of the time imposed by the court. In the federal system, TOOMEY does have the opportunity to earn a sentence reduction for "good behavior." However, this reduction will not exceed 15% of the overall sentence.
The investigation was a cooperative effort between the Missoula County Sheriff's Office, the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, the Missoula Police Department, and the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.
