ALABAMA
AL.com
By Brendan Kirby | bkirby@al.com
on May 20, 2013
MOBILE, Alabama – Decades of a secret past of child sexual abuse caught up with a former Catholic deacon this morning, with a federal judge sentencing him to almost six years in prison on a child pornography charge.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service tracked down Robert L. Nouwen from a Canadian company’s customer list, but by then, he already had destroyed the movies he had ordered for $188. A search of his home and computer did not turn up any child pornography.
Had Nouwen not admitted to agents that he had bought the movies, the investigation likely would have ended there, defense attorney Gordon Armstrong said.
In addition, Armstrong said, the 82-year-old Mobile man may well have received much more lenient punishment had he not come forward with numerous instances of sexual abuse against young boys.
“It started with him,” he told Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele. “It started with his own admissions.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.