Man Sentenced for Child Pornography Possession

A Severn man will serve more than 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He faced 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 this summer 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.

Fierlie was sentenced Monday to 135 months in prison, followed by supervised release for life.

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 November 2007 and April 2009, he created email accounts with a username that combined his first name with the first name of the victim in his child sex abuse case. Firlie used the internet to try to locate the victim and her family as recently as June 2014.

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.