The news hit close to home as TV3, an ABC-affiliate in Winchester, VA owned by Gray Television, reported this week that Ryan O’Connor, a former reporter with the station, had been sentenced to four years in jail for the possession of child pornography and propositioning a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old girl online.
O’Connor, 25, was arrested in September 2009 and charged with four counts of child pornography, one count of taking indecent liberties with a child and one count of using a computer related to those crimes. In February, he pleaded guilty as part of an agreement that would cap his maximum jail time at 10 years.
O’Connor has been sentenced to four years in prison, according to TV3, plus ten years of supervised probation.
Shortly after his arrest in 2009, TV3 terminated his employment. (Note: TV3 runs on a digital subchannel of Harrisonburg ABC-affiliate WHSV, which is also owned by Gray. A previous edition of this post mistakenly mentioned that O’Connor worked for WHSV).