A Hillsborough County man was sentenced to 60 years in prison for possession and promotion of child pornography, the Florida Attorney General’s Office said in a statement today.
Joseph Bullard was found guilty of 50 counts of possession of child pornography and one count of promotion of child pornography. He was prosecuted by the State Attorney’s Office after an investigation by the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit and the Plant City Police Department.
Bullard was arrested in August 2009 after CyberCrime investigators discovered images of child pornography during a routine undercover investigation and traced the images back to Bullard’s computer. Law enforcement officers conducted a search warrant at Bullard’s Dover home and confiscated computers, which underwent forensic analysis.
The charges and the sentence in this case reflect the fact that Bullard collected and used for his own gratification, graphic images of children being sexually abused, including movies and images of children as young as one year old.
In addition to his prison sentence, Bullard will be required to register with the state as a sex offender. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office assisted with the arrest.
