Baltimore man pleads guilty to distributing child porn from motel

clipped from www.baltimoresun.com A 21-year-old Baltimore man pleaded guilty today to distributing child pornography on the Internet from a motel. He now faces between five and 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 16, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office said. Levi Peterson admitted in his plea agreement that he had more than 2,000 images of child pornography stored on his home computer and an additional 4,500 similar images on a disk that FBI agents found in his room at the Days Inn Court. Prosecutors said an undercover FBI agent in New York assigned to patrol the Internet looking for illegal child pornography sites found one advertising images of pre-teen boys. The investigation began in 2003. In court papers, the agent said it was difficult to sign on because an error message -- "corrupted" -- flashed on the screen on the first two attempts to download an image. Authorities said they believe that was an attempt to discourage law enforcement and make them think the site did not exist.