Man pleads guilty to possessing child porn

A Jackson resident pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced in a news release

Randy McClard, 55, faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 followed by a lifelong period of supervised release, the news release said. He admitted to U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey that he had more than 100 images of children engaged in sexually explicit content on his home computer. The images were discovered as part of the Project Safe Childhood, a Department of Justice initiative to protect children from online exploitation and abuse by joining federal, state and local law enforcement resources. Law enforcement officers visited McClard at his residence July 31, and he and his wife consented to searches of their computers. No illicit images of children were found on his wife's computer. In an interview, McClard admitted collecting the images from the Internet and that his wife had no knowledge of the child pornography.

Sentencing was set for July 22 in Cape Girardeau.