A former Sunday school teacher jailed for his collection of perverted children photos could walk free after a Florida appeals court overturned his conviction. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Danny Parker, who also worked as a youth camp photographer, made a 2009 plea bargain deal after authorities discovered he had cut out the faces of young girls and glued them on the bodies of nude adult women.
In three cases, the girls’ faces were attached to shots of women engaged in sex acts.
But Parker appealed the case by arguing possession of his homemade photos was not actually possession of child pornography – and the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed.
“Mr. Parker’s conduct, as we will describe, is loathsome,” the panel wrote. “But it escapes the grasp of the statute on which the State proceeds. Consequently, we must reverse.”
It was unclear when the 41-year-old Parker – a one-time volunteer at the Lakeland Acres Baptist Church – might walk out of jail.
He was sentenced to five years in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation.
The suspect, who lived with his parents, was arrested in 2008 after pieces of his creepy collection were discovered in his trash.
He used both his position at the Sunday school and the Lake Wales Care Center youth camp to snap photos of the girls whose heads were later affixed to the women’s bodies, authorities said.
“Over the years, he photographed many children,” the appeals court wrote. “They posed innocently enough, much as in the style one would expect of a school photo, a yearbook, or a family scene.
“The innocence turned perverse.”
