July 1, 2021 at 4:02 p.m.
Woodruff man sentenced to prison in child pornography case
Waukesha case still pending
Woodruff man sentenced to prison in child pornography case
Oneida County circuit judge Michael Bloom followed the recommendation of assistant district attorney Jillian Pfeifer and defense attorney Brian Bennett in sentencing Alexander J. Beda. The sentence also conforms to the mandatory minimum period of incarceration called for under state statute.
Beda has been held in the Oneida County jail since Nov. 20, 2020 when he made his initial court appearance. In late April, Bennett and Pfeifer outlined a joint agreement aimed at resolving the case. In exchange for a guilty or no contest plea to the first two counts, Pfeifer agreed to dismiss the other eight. Both sides also joined in requesting a pre-sentence investigation.
At the June 24 sentencing hearing, Pfeifer cited the defendant's lack of any prior criminal offenses, along with his cooperation with investigators, as factors to be considered in his favor. However, she also noted that the gravity of the offense calls for a "punitive sentence."
"The fact of the matter is, pornographic images of minors is illegal," Pfeifer said. "It doesn't matter why you're doing it, and it was evident that he was doing it on multiple occasions, given the sheer number of images that he had."
Bennett agreed with the prosecutor as to his client's level of cooperation, telling the judge he had never had a case "where the defendant was so forthright."
"But he fell down the hole of internet pornography," Bennett said, adding that the results of testing done as part of the pre-sentence investigation showed he is a "low risk to reoffend."
In a short statement, Beda took responsibility for his actions.
"I'm willing to take what punishment does come my way," he told Bloom.
In reviewing the factors he must weigh in arriving at a sentence, Bloom took note of all of the points in Beda's favor but concluded the severity of the crime outweighed every other consideration.
"Child pornography is distasteful," Bloom said. "It is a manifestation of an impulse or desire or urge or whatever other form of motivation you want to label it. When someone experiences arousal or pleasure or a thrill or anything along those lines as a result of viewing sexually explicit images of children it is a manifestation of something that present society just cannot condone, and must do whatever is reasonably available to stamp out."
He also noted that it is proving harder to do that because there are some people who say child pornography doesn't harm anyone.
In rebuttal to that, he repeated what he had heard once from another judge.
"A child that is a subject of a pornographic image is victimized every time that a person looks at such image," Bloom said.
Beda is also facing 7 class C felony charges of sexual exploitation of a child in Waukesha County. Joel Mogren, Beda's defense attorney in the Waukesha County case, observed the Oneida County sentencing hearing via Zoom, but did not take part.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the Oneida County case, the Center For Missing and Exploited Children alerted law enforcement that a cellphone that was later connected to Beda had accessed the internet to upload suspected child porn.
Ten images of suspected child pornography were later recovered from the phone, according to the complaint.
The Waukesha County case arose when Beda told Oneida County and Wisconsin Department of Justice investigators that he had produced child pornography involving a 7-year-old at a residence in Waukesha County. A forensic examination of Beda's cellphone found nine images of the alleged victim. Metadata on the images told investigators the date, time and GPS coordinates where the images were taken that put Beda at a residence in the town of Genesee in Waukesha County.
According to online court records, Beda made his initial court appearance in that case on May 27. A $10,000 cash bond was set at that time. A preliminary hearing in that case is scheduled for July 14.
Now that Beda has been sentenced in the Oneida County case, he will be transferred to the Waukesha County jail.
Each count of sexual exploitation of a child carries a maximum of up to 40 years in prison and a mandatory minimum of 5 years.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
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