A Minburn man is given the maximum prison sentence on federal child pornography charges. A U.S. District Court judge sentenced 76-year-old Harold “Hal” Halstrom to 10 years in prison.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agents say 76-year-old Harold “Hal” Halstrom was one of the top ten most active collectors of child pornography they were tracking on the internet between 2010 and 2012. The judge said his sentencing also took into account Holmstrom’s decades of sexual abuse of five female family members which had gone unreported until his prosecution on the child pornography charges. The judge said the victim impact statements were among the most difficult he has read in his time on the bench.
Investigators say Halstrom had wiped images of child porn from his computer, but a computer forensic team was able to recover evidence of more than 48-hundred images of child porn involving children under 12, bestiality and violence.