A Philadelphia journalist was sentenced Friday to 20 years in federal prison for possessing thousands of images and videos of child pornography.<\/p>\n
Michael Hochman, whose work was published over the years by outlets including Visit Philadelphia, the sports website Crossing Broad<\/a>, and The Inquirer<\/a> \u2014 where he once contributed a freelance column \u2014 came to the attention of investigators in 2022 after they learned that he exchanged explicit messages with a teenage girl. Authorities later found that he had downloaded more than 2,000 photos and videos of children being sexually abused onto his computers and other devices, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n Hochman, 52, of Huntingdon Valley, compiled that collection over the course of more than a decade, prosecutors said, and did so even after he\u2019d served prison time for sexually assaulting a teenager in Kansas in 2002. <\/p>\n In sentencing Hochman on Friday, U.S. District Judge Kelley B. Hodge cited that conviction as she imposed a prison term five years longer than prosecutors sought.<\/p>\n Calling Hochman\u2019s actions \u201cshameful\u201d and \u201cvile,\u201d the judge said, \u201cThe level of depravity … is without words.\u201c<\/p>\n Hochman was convicted of child sex crimes two decades ago after prosecutors say he had sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online. He was convicted of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and sentenced to 55 months in prison, court documents said.<\/p>\n In 2022, prosecutors said, a Missouri woman discovered that her 15-year-old daughter, who had developmental disabilities, had been exchanging explicit messages with an older man online. The mother alerted law enforcement, and authorities traced the messages back to Hochman. <\/p>\n After investigators seized six devices from Hochman\u2019s home, the documents said, four were found to contain sexually explicit images and videos of children being abused. <\/p>\n In all, prosecutors said, Hochman possessed about 1,900 photos and 130 videos of child pornography, many of which depicted rapes, and some of which had been downloaded more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella said it was \u201cvery troubling\u201d that Hochman began downloading materials of children being abused not long after he\u2019d been punished for similar crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe seriousness of his crimes can in no way be argued with,\u201d Rotella said.<\/p>\n Hochman\u2019s attorney, Michael Diamondstein, said no one should be defined by their best or worst actions, but acknowledged the gravity of Hochman\u2019s misdeeds. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a bad case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The judge noted that some of the images on Hochman\u2019s computer depicted children as young as three.<\/p>\n Moreover, she said, Hochman\u2019s exchanges with the 15-year-old girl in Missouri were \u201cbeyond offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n And Hochman, she said, had a solid upbringing and was a working professional with a college degree, who had opportunities to avoid acting on criminal impulses.<\/p>\n \u201cYou knew better,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know how to access help.\u201d<\/p>\n Hochman apologized for his actions, saying he recognizes the harm he\u2019s caused and will work the rest of his life to avoid doing so again in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cI made these choices, and I must accept the consequences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Philadelphia journalist was sentenced Friday to 20 years in federal prison for possessing thousands of images and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":427372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,198875,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-427371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-michael-hochman-child-pornography-prison","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115669193521124910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}