Former Newsday Exec Cops Kiddy Porn Plea

August 5, 2006 -- "Former Newsday publisher Robert Johnson faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to collecting kiddie porn on his office computer and then trying to destroy the evidence when the feds caught up with him.

Johnson, a 60-year-old married father of two grown children, admitted he downloaded at least two child-pornography movie files - including one called "Real Child Rape" - in the headquarters of a Manhattan financial publishing firm where he was CEO.

The feds said beginning around April 2002 Johnson, who then lived in Huntington, L.I., used his office computer to access child-porn Web sites.

In May 2004 after investigators contacted the company - and he learned of the probe - Johnson obliterated more than 12,000 files from his hard disks.

Johnson retired from the firm for "personal reasons" and quit as Long Island's representative on the regents.

He was indicted in June 2005 on charges of receiving child porn, collecting it and destroying evidence, allegations that carry a maximum of 50 years in prison.

Efforts to reach Johnson and his lawyer yesterday were unsuccessful. Johnson faces up to 10 years on the possession charge and 20 years on the destruction charge when he is sentenced Oct. 27."

This is something I cannot understand, not even a little, which makes commenting upon it quite difficult. The filth that comes from filthy areas of the world such as Russia and Asia is apparently very attractive to even the most well educated and otherwise salt of the earth captains of industry, and from this I conclude that it is more than a mere character flaw. Men such as Johnson have so very much to lose that such behavior would be inconceivable were it not some sort of serious addiction. And a dangerous addiction, one that glosses over the fact that children are being seriously harmed in ways most foul. He didn't make the movies or take the pictures, but he paid the people that did and needs far more than a slap on the wrist. We'll never stop such perverts but the punishment has to be as severe as justice will allow, plea or no plea.

12,000 files? And those are the ones the authorities know of. Amazing.