Former Employee of the GC Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison for Sexually Abusing Children
by AT News Team
More than a year ago, on March 5, 2012, an employee in the audio-visual department of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was fired. Lewd images of three girls between the ages of five and eight were found on the man's work computer at the GC. He has been sentenced to a total of 150 years in prison for sexually abusing the children and possessing child pornography, according to a story published on the Baltimore Sun web site at 5 p.m. July 11 to appear in the paper the next morning.
Joseph E. Davis pled guilty in April to three counts of sexual abuse of a minor and ten counts of second and third degree sex offenses, the newspaper story said. He was sentenced Tuesday (July 9) by Howard County (Maryland) Circuit Court Judge Richard Bernhardt.
A statement of facts in the case, the newspaper reported, said that on February 29, 2012, the IT department at the GC found very large bandwidth being used by Davis' work computer. A search found lewd pictures from an external hard drive and the local police were contacted. The investigation by the Montgomery County police department led to the seizure of the hard drive that had a total of 80 pornographic images of the three children uploaded between May 2010 and April 2011. The pictures were taken at Davis' home while the children were left in his care.
"The General Conference has a zero-tolerance practice as it related to accessing pornographic websites on computers or other electronic devices," the newspaper quoted a statement from the GC. "The Seventh-day Adventist Church views the care and protection of children as a value of utmost importance, and will cooperate with authorities as they investigate any activities that may have been illegal in nature."