An Ida Grove man pleaded guilty this week in Sioux City Federal Court to possession of child pornography.
At a plea hearing, 49-year-old Scott Tomlinson admitted that he knowingly possessed and attempted to possess child porn including depictions involving prepubescent minors or minors who had not yet reached 12 years of age. Law enforcement recovered dozens of images from Tomlinson’s cloud-based storage systems. Tomlinson admitted that he used a cell phone to access the images on the cloud. He further admitted that some of the images included material that portrayed sadistic and masochistic conduct.
Sentencing will be set after a pre-sentence report is prepared. Tomlinson was taken into custody by the United States Marshal, where he will remain pending sentencing. Tomlinson faces up to 20 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole, a fine of up to 250-thousand dollars, and between five years and life of supervised release following any imprisonment.
