Lee’s Summit sex offender gets 10-year sentence for child pornography

As a convicted sex offender, Thomas A. Shields was not supposed to own a computer without registering his online identifying information with police.

But when officers went to his Lee’s Summit home to conduct a “compliance check,” they discovered an unregistered computer, which investigators later found had been used to search for images of child pornography.

On Thursday, that transgression prompted a federal judge in Kansas City to sentence Shields to 10 years in prison without parole.

He had pleaded guilty in September to possession of child pornography and using a computer with the intent to access child pornography.

According to court documents, when police discovered the computer and asked for permission to view it, Shields told them he was “pretty sure” there would be pornography on the computer, but he wasn’t sure of the nature of the pornography.

He later told police that he had viewed child pornography in a “moment of weakness,” according to the documents filed by prosecutors.

Shields, 45, was a registered offender because of a prior felony conviction for sodomy, prosecutors said.

This story was originally published April 3, 2014 at 4:03 PM with the headline "Lee’s Summit sex offender gets 10-year sentence for child pornography."