BARTOW COUNTY, Ga. — An ex-EMT and substitute elementary school teacher in Bartow County will go to prison for 12-and-a-half years in a child pornography conviction, the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta said on Friday.
According to the U.S. Attorney, 43-year-old Bryan David Somers was convicted by a jury in March and sentenced this week by a federal judge. His sentence includes 25 years of supervised release after the prison time.
Investigators learned child pornography was being shared on a computer in Cartersville and traced the IP address Somers in 2019, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said.
"Law enforcement seized and searched the computers found in Somers’s bedroom. A forensic analysis resulted in the recovery of a file that contained child pornography and revealed that Somers had downloaded hundreds of files with titles indicating they contained child pornography," a release from Buchanan's office said. "Investigators also determined that Somers had attempted to remove these images from his devices to prevent discovery of this evidence."
In a statement, Buchanan said that Somers "participated in the continuing abuse and exploitation of children."
“The pictures and videos document the abuse of real children at the hands of depraved individuals. Distributing those images over the internet means the most horrifying thing in a child’s life is shared around the world, in perpetuity," he said.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Department of Homeland Security, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Bartow County Sheriff's Office and Polk County Police Department all contributed to the investigation.
