EMTA bus driver, fired after caught with child porn at home, is sent to federal prison
A Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority bus driver was fired after he was indicted on federal child pornography charges in September.
He received further punishment on Tuesday. A judge sentenced him to seven years in federal prison and 10 years of supervised release for downloading what the prosecutor described in a sentencing memorandum as "extreme child sexual abuse material" that depicted children as young as 3 "being raped and brutalized."
The defendant, Darren Akers, 48, pleaded guilty in November to one felony count of receiving or attempting to receive child pornography.
The charge was unrelated to his job as a bus driver. Akers' sex addiction was behind his behavior, he and his lawyer said.
"I apologize for what I have done," Akers told U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter at the federal courthouse in Erie. "I have reasons for why I did what I did. I am seeing a therapist. I know what I did was wrong."
Akers has been attending a support group for sex addicts, said his lawyer, Anthony Andrezeski. He said Akers had worked for the EMTA for 17 years when he was fired.
"He lost his job," Andrezeski told Baxter. "He is unemployable."
He said Akers immediately cooperated with FBI agents who investigated his case. Akers giving them a written statement of his involvement in downloading the child pornography, Andrezeski said.
The agents showed up at Akers' West 37th Street residence in March 2023 with a search warrant for his computer. The agents had receiving notices related to online child pornography on the computer from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center's CyberTipline system received complaints from Microsoft, according to court records.
The FBI connected Akers to the child pornography on his computer by tracking the device's IP address, a numeric designation that identifies the device's location.
The agents seized Akers' computer. "A forensic exam of that computer revealed the presence of hundreds of images and videos" of child pornography dating to May 2022, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold, said in his sentencing memo.
"The content of his extreme child sexual abuse material is very troubling," Trabold said in the memo. "A normal person would be appalled and recoil if presented with this material."
Sentence for child porn was above mandatory minimum
Trabold asked Baxter to impose the penalty that he and Andrezeski had agreed upon: seven years in prison, 10 years of supervised release once Akers gets out of prison and restitution of $18,000, or $3,000 to cover each of the claims of six victims depicted in the child pornography.
Akers faced a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years. The federal sentencing guidelines, which account for a defendant's prior record and other factors, recommended a minimum sentence of eight years and one month and a maximum sentence of 10 years and one month, according to court records.
Trabold had asked for a sentence within the guideline range when he filed his sentencing memo on March 12. He and the defense later reached the deal for a sentence of seven years — a year less than the minimum sentence under the guidelines but two years more than the mandatory minimum sentence.
Defendant must get treatment for sex addiction while in prison
Baxter accepted the recommended sentence of seven years. She said the sentence balanced Akers' lack of a criminal record and his efforts at therapy with the severity of the child pornography.
"The harm that is caused to the children who are the subject of the material you downloaded is irreversible," Baxter said. "And it is for them that the punishments are substantial."
Baxter ordered Akers to undergo treatment for sex addiction while in prison. She called his addiction "a hard road" that she said he could nonetheless overcome with therapy.
Akers had been free on an unsecured bond of $10,000 since his indictment. He was ordered to prison immediately after the sentencing.
Akers left the courtroom in handcuffs as his parents and three friends looked on.
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Fired EMTA bus driver is sentenced for downloading child pornography
