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Ex-City Commissioner Who Blamed Tumor For Child Porn Stash Sentenced To 7 Years

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — A former Los Angeles city commissioner who blamed a tumor for his partiality to child pornography was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Monday afternoon.

Albert Abrams, 64, pleaded guilty to the charges in a plea agreement earlier this year.

He told a judge he was sorry for his crimes and apologized to those he may have harmed.

The former city official said a spinal tumor gave him a split personality, which led him to download or obtain more than 600 sexually explicit images of children under the age of 12 onto his computer over the course of 10 years.

Abrams allegedly went by the online name "Boywonder USA."

His attorney recently told CBS2's David Goldstein, who broke the story, that Abrams was caught off-guard by the reporter's questions and that his client looked at child porn because he's suffering from back pain.

"I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, but I've seen no evidence in this case, or any other case, that someone suffering from any type of pain, especially not a back, tumor or cyst, would cause someone to look at these type of images," prosecutor Lana Morton-Owens said.

In addition to prison, the court ordered Abrams to remain on supervised probation for the rest of his life.

RELATED STORY:

CBS2 Investigates: Former LA City Commissioner To Plead Guilty To Child Pornography Charge

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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