Wichita sex offender told cops he had ‘possibly hundreds’ of child porn images on phone
A Sedgwick County jury deliberated for 30 minutes Tuesday before convicting a Wichita sex offender as charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a child for having pornographic images on his cellphone of young girls, some preschool aged.
Thomas James Goforth, 41, will be sentenced June 30 by Sedgwick County District Judge Tyler Roush, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
Like the jury’s deliberations, Goforth’s trial was quick: It started at 9 a.m. Monday. The guilty verdicts were handed down at 1:06 p.m. Tuesday, Dillon said.
Goforth pleaded not guilty in the case last year, court records show.
Prosecutors said Goforth possessed the illegal and explicit images between Feb. 17, 2018, and Sept. 13, 2018, while he was on parole for a 2013 Johnson County child pornography case.
The case came to light after Goforth’s parole officer expressed “serious concerns” about him to a Kansas Department of Corrections special agent and sought help searching Goforth’s digital devices after he failed part of a polygraph test that asked about his post-prison activities, court records say.
Goforth agreed to the search and later told law enforcement that his phone, a LG Aristo 2, contained “possibly hundreds of images of child pornography,” his arrest affidavit says.
One image described in the affidavit is of a girl investigators think is younger than 4.
Others were 4 or 5, under age 10 and younger than 14, the affidavit says authorities estimated.
Goforth started using the cellphone a day after he was released from prison in the Johnson County case, on Feb. 16, 2018, court records show.
Goforth’s lawyer has argued in court filings that authorities discovered the images only because Goforth failed a Sept. 8, 2018, polygraph test that he “had no choice” but to take to participate in a sex offender treatment program, a requirement of his parole.
Had he refused, he would have been sent back to prison, the lawyer argued.
In Kansas, the presumptive sentence for a sexual exploitation of a child conviction is 31 to 136 months, depending on a person’s prior criminal history.
