MARTHA'S VINEYARD (MA)
Martha's Vineyard Times
December 1, 2005
By Ezra Blair
A week after a member of Saudi Arabia's extended royal family reached a plea deal to serve his jail time at the Dukes County House of Correction, a second off-Island prisoner was sentenced to the Edgartown facility.
On Monday, a Bristol Superior Court judge sentenced Rev. Stephen Fernandes, 55, to eight months at the Island's house of correction. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year sentence.
Mr. Fernandes, a Roman Catholic priest in New Bedford, was arrested last November and pleaded guilty on Sept. 26 to charges of possession and distribution of child pornography and posing a child in a state of nudity.
According to the Associated Press, investigators found more than 500 images of child pornography, including 114 video files, on Mr. Fernandes' computer after he sent his laptop to a computer servicing company. Mr. Fernandes also allegedly pretended that he was a 19-year-old woman in a successful effort to coerce a boy to perform a sex act, which Mr. Fernandes recorded.