Severn Man Faces 20 Years in Prison for Child Porn Possession

A Severn man who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography will face extra penalties for the crime because he was trying to track down a victim he had sexually abused two decades ago, authorities say.

Albert A. Firlie, 67, of Severn pleaded guilty Friday to possession of child pornography. He faces an enhanced sentence because of a 1991 child abuse conviction in Howard County involving the sexual abuse of a prepubescent girl, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to Firlie’s plea agreement, beginning in October 2003, Firlie used the internet to locate and obtain child pornography. He also uploaded an estimated 120 videos between 2008 and 2014 that depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

In September 2014, Firlie’s activities came to light as tried to upload 51 sexually explicit videos of children to a Google G-mail address. But the website detected the use of its cloud services for the storage of child pornography and reported the matter to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which reported the matter to federal authorities.

A search of Firlie’s residence recovered a large number of computers and other digital storage media that contained more than 600 images, including over 120 videos, depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, authorities say.

As part of his plea agreement, Firlie must register as a sex offender after his release.

Firlie faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by up to lifetime of supervised release, for possession of child pornography. He is schedule to be sentenced on Oct. 19.