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A Grand Forks man who pleaded guilty to possessing pornography depicting 1- to 9-year-old children being sexually assaulted will spend roughly 16 months in jail.
Roger Lee Whaley, 86, was sentenced Wednesday in Grand Forks District Court to five years in prison on 10 counts of possessing certain materials prohibited. Each charge carried a five-year sentence, meaning he faced up to 50 years in prison.
Instead, Judge John Thelen ordered the sentence for each charge to run concurrently, and because three years were suspended and Whaley had 226 days’ credit for time served, he will spend 504 days behind bars.
The sentence came after Whaley was arrested in November 2015, after police found multiple electronic devices at his Grand Forks home. Whaley was not present for the search.
Investigators found an inserted SanDisk in Whaley’s computer that contained 10 images of children between the ages of 1 and 9 being sexually assaulted by adults.
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Whaley pleaded guilty in September.
