In a Monday morning announcement, Acting U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder revealed that following a three-day trial in Juneau, previously convicted sex offender, 40-year-old Jim Wayne Thornhill, was convicted of Receipt of Child Pornography.

Schroder stated in a press release today that “Thornhill faces a maximum penalty of no less than 15 years and up to 40 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, a five-year to life  term of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.”

The case that resulted in Thornhill’s conviction began in the fall of 2015, when the FBI forwarded a report of harm to the Juneau Police Department from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Internet Crimes Against CChildren (ICAC).

The FBI met and interviewed THornhill on October 7th, 2015. At that time, Thornhill denied having a cell phone, but, his employer found Thornhill’s cell phone and handwritten lists of search terms connected to child pornography which they turned over to investigators.

Thornhill was again interviewed by the FBI on October 13th, and admitted to owning the phone and making the search term list. He also admitted to using the phone to do searches between September and November of 2014.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]Following information gathered in this second interview, a search warrant was obtained for Thornhill’s phone. A search of the phone would find over 100 child porn images. “Many of the images were of young pre-pubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including images that depicted an adult male sexually  assaulting a toddler,” Schroder said.

Thornhill is a previously convicted sex offender, and was convicted in Ketchikan in 2008 for sexual abuse of a child over a period of years, from the time the child was six until the age of eleven.

Thornhill’s sentencing is scheduled for November 30th.

  child porn, conviction, fbi, jim, juneau, sentencing, thornhill