By JON REMACHE & ISRAEL SALAS-RODRIGUEZ
The commercial airline pilot from Texas who was convicted of possessing child pornography on his iPad was sentenced on Thursday to six months in jail, 10 years’ probation, and having to register as a sex offender in New York as well as anywhere he finds a home or work.
Thomas E. Perkins, 39, of Frisco Texas, turned to his family and smiled as he was escorted out of Queen’s Supreme Court after the sentencing for possessing two child pornography videos.
Queens Justice Richard L. Buchter declared firmly: “The defendant needs to be monitored and programmed, and clearly the defendant has a problem.”
“Every time these videos are viewed the child is exploited. This is an insidious and awful crime,” said Buchter.
Perkins was ordered to pay $1,000 in victim’s fee and a surcharge which was not made public.
Perkins was arrested by law enforcement at JFK Airport in April 2015, when police seized his iPad with five child pornography videos on it. He argued that the videos were already on the device when he purchased the used iPad from a Texas pawn shop two week before his arrest. He claimed prosecutors could not prove the videos were uploaded after he bought it.
The jurors agreed that two of the videos, which featured pre-pubescent girls, were uploaded by Perkins; he was acquitted of possessing the other three videos.
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