Suspended priest given 8-year prison sentence

PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE

PITTSBURGH —A suspended Pittsburgh-area priest will serve more than eight years in prison for possessing and receiving thousands of images of child pornography on his church computer.

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the Rev. Bartley Sorensen to 97 months behind bars.

The 63-year-old Roman Catholic priest was arrested by Allegheny County authorities in December 2011 after an employee at St. John Fisher Parish in Churchill noticed him looking at a photo of a young boy on his computer.

Federal officials took over the investigation after a computer search turned up thousands of child pornography images, some of them sadomasochistic.

Sorensen pleaded guilty in May.

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