Urbana man sent to prison in federal child porn case

URBANA — An Urbana man who had child pornography both in his workplace and his home has been sentenced to 6- 1/2 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael McCuskey imposed the sentence Thursday on Justin Davison, 28, whose last known address was in the 1600 block of Willow Road.

In February, Davison pleaded guilty to two counts of receipt of child pornography and one of possession of child pornography.

That he had the pictures came to light in late 2009 when a fellow employee at Carle Clinic found on Davison's work computer a photo — not sexual in nature — of the 12-year-old daughter of another employee. The colleague had been searching for a virus that was purported to have invaded the company network.

After seeing the girl's picture, information technology officials took a closer look at Davison's computer and found pornography. They also discovered that he was deleting files as they were looking at them.

Urbana police investigated and found pornography on both Davison's work and home computers.

Davison admitted to police he had been obsessed with child pornography for at least six years and on more than one occasion had discarded his collection, only to get more later.

He also admitted he obtained the photo of the co-worker's daughter by remotely accessing that person's computer.

In addition to the prison term, Davison will have to serve five years of supervised release, pay $6,000 in restitution, and register as a sex offender for life.

Davison lost his job at Carle in the wake of the police investigation. A clinic spokesperson said he never had any involvement in direct patient care.

Davison has been in custody since his Feb. 3 guilty plea.

His case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elly Peirson. He was represented by Urbana attorney Tony Novak.