Geoffrey Portway pleaded
guilty in May to distribution and possession of child pornography and
solicitation to commit a crime of violence, according to court
documents. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 17.
"Portway has pled guilty
to some of the most vile and heinous crimes known to our society,"
federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing recommendation.
But a lawyer for the
40-year-old defendant told CNN his client "lived in a fantasy world" and
there was no evidence he harmed any child.
Portway went by the
moniker "Fat Longpig" during his online chats, according to court
documents. It was these chats that put Portway on the radar screen of
police.
When his home in
Worcester was searched last year, authorities found tens of thousands of
computer images and videos of child pornography and 4,500 exchanges of
child pornography between Portway and the people he chatted with online.
The images included children being cooked and prepared to be eaten,
court documents said. Those photographs are sealed.
Authorities also found a
locked basement, court documents show. Photos taken the day of Portway's
arrest, and released by prosecutors, show a narrow wooden staircase
leading downstairs to a soundproof room.
It was furnished with a
metal cage with a circular hole for feeding, a rusted and worn
steel-topped table, as well as multiple kinds of metal bondage
equipment. A child-sized coffin made of plywood was found on the floor
nearby.
Portway's lawyer,
Richard J. Sweeney, told CNN that Tuesday's sentencing hearing will be
"the proper time to address all the issues addressed by the government."
But he added, "There's no evidence at all of Geoffrey being involved
with any child or harming any child."
"Geoffrey lived in a
fantasy world where he did live-action role playing, did things online
unrelated to child porn and cannibalism. A lot of the chats that he had
were, in his mind, fantasy," Sweeney said. "When they went out to the
other people he was talking to, these other people actually had kids
they were taking photos of. Geoffrey did not have any kids he had
abducted, though he certainly talked about it."
Photographs reviewed by
CNN show handcuffs, rope intended for bondage, mouth gags, and
castration tools. A large box of frozen raw chicken, near a handful of
disposable scalpels, was photographed by investigators near two
industrial-sized freezers.
In the kitchen, a jug of
bleach was seen by the doorway, while a red child-sized "onesie" lay on
the countertop, amid snacks and disposable syringes. A butcher kit
containing plastic gloves, multiple knives and other items was
photographed in the sink.
Among a DVD collection,
the documents show, were titles such as "Human Beast," "Hansel and
Gretel," "The Real Cannibal Holocaust," "The Genesis Children,"
"Cannibal the Musical," and "Cannibal Ferox," a film with the tagline
"Make them die slowly."
Online chats, seized by
police, showed Portway call his basement a "dungeon" where he intended
to "keep kidnapped children while he sexually abused them and as a place
to eventually murder and cannibalize the children."
Two other men who chatted with Portway have already been convicted.
One was a puppeteer who,
authorities say, plotted with Portway to kidnap children the puppeteer
knew from his work at a local Florida church.
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