Convicted sex offender pleads guilty to having child porn
Jun. 29—A convicted sex offender residing at a Charleston homeless facility pleaded guilty Tuesday to possessing child pornography.
According to court documents and statements made in court, on April 25, 2020, James Gipson, 59, was in the common room of a homeless facility on Leon Sullivan Way when facility staff observed Gipson looking at child pornography on a laptop he possessed. The staff summoned police, who recovered the laptop. A forensic analysis found more than 300 images depicting child pornography on Gipson's laptop. Gipson admitted that the laptop was his and that he knew he should not have possessed it.
Gipson was previously convicted of possession of child pornography and was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison on March 5, 2012. Gipson was on lifetime supervised release as a result of that conviction when he committed this new crime. Gipson was also a registered sex offender at the time of this incident as a result of the 2012 conviction.
Gipson is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 26 and faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to 20 years in prison as well as at least five years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
----A Maryland man was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, for possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking and violating his supervised release.
On April 7, 2021, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at a Washington Avenue residence in Huntington. Edward Sample, also known as "Caine," 37, of Baltimore, was at the house along with others. Officers seized a loaded Taurus G3C 9mm pistol, capsules which contained heroin and fentanyl, $1,620 in cash, digital scales and a cutting agent during the search.
Sample admitted to possessing the firearm to protect his money and drugs. Sample further admitted to using the same firearm two days earlier to shoot at a house in the Cross Lanes area in order to collect a $50 drug debt.
Sample was previously convicted of aiding and abetting an armed robbery and possessing and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence on Jan. 21, 2011. Tuesday's nine-year prison sentence includes two additional years for committing crimes while on supervised release.
----Keegan Shane Stanley, 31, of Poca, was sentenced Tuesday to six years and six months in prison, to be followed by 20 years of supervised release, for transportation of child pornography.
According to court documents and statements made in court, on May 9, 2021, Stanley uploaded videos of child pornography to Dropbox, an online file sharing website. A search of his residence revealed over 1,600 images of child pornography.
