Man sentenced for child pornography, says it “isn’t his thing”
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IDAHO FALLS — A convicted felon has been sentenced to 14 years for child pornography and illegally possessing a firearm.
Chad Claxton, 40, was sentenced Tuesday afternoon to three years fixed plus six years indeterminate for child pornography and three years fixed plus two years indeterminate for illegally possessing a firearm. The sentences will be served consecutively for a total of 14 years.
Claxton was arrested in January 2017 after the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children Unit conducted an investigation.
While he pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography as part of a plea agreement, Claxton said during his sentencing hearing that he never purposely downloaded it.
“I can’t preview before downloading,” Claxton said about the file sharing website he used. “I just download, download, download.”
Bonneville County Prosecutor John Dewey said Claxton admitted to viewing a video depicting child pornography during a polygraph test. Claxton said he only viewed it for 30 seconds and that child pornography “isn’t his thing.”
“I don’t care for it,” he continued. “It’s victimized kids.”
Claxton said there was false information in the police report and that his ex-wife never told investigators they had split up because of child pornography. He also said he never told police he had been selling drugs.
Claxton lamented that when he gets out of prison he will have to register as a sex offender and that he won’t be able to move back into his house because it’s near a school.
District Judge Joel Tingey said he was surprised to see Claxton charged with child pornography after dealing with him over through years with drug charges and convictions.
“I can’t help but imagine where you would be without that demon inside of you calling you back to drugs,” Tingey said.
After being arrested on the child pornography charges, Claxton was later arrested on multiple drug charges. He will be arraigned on those counts next month.