Consent To Disbarment After Child Porn Conviction

The Maryland Court of Appeals has disbarred an attorney by consent.

The Patch reported

A Washington, DC lawyer was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to distributing child pornography videos, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Jason Mark Sims, 36, admitted to answering an advertisement on Craigslist that solicited a 10-year-old girl for sex. The listing was placed by an undercover FBI agent who pretended to be a dad advertising his daughter, according to court documents.

Sims ultimately declined to meet the undercover in person, but he did provide the FBI agent with links to videos depicting the sexual abuse of girls as young as 4 years-old, prosecutors said.

According to the website Above The Law, Sims was a Paul Weiss staff attorney. He started working there in Nov. 2011.

In addition to five years in prison, the Court imposed the special condition that Sims write an article for publication about his crime in an effort to achieve general deterrence. Sims will also serve ten years of supervised released and be subject to computer monitoring.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

(Mike Frisch)