A 26-year-old Bedford father pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to taking lewd pictures of himself in sexual situations with his preschool-age daughters and sending them to another man.
Thomas James Murphy III faces between 13 and 15 years in prison and up to a quarter-million-dollar fine when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terry Means on April 12 in Fort Worth.
FBI agents encountered Murphy through another child porn investigation involving a Hawaii man, Daniel Seguerre, records show.
In June, an undercover FBI agent in Maryland discovered someone she later identified as Seguerre trafficking in child porn on a peer-to-peer Internet network. The FBI says its investigation revealed that Seguerre appeared to be bribing his own children with candy in order to get them to cooperate in the sexually explicit videos, court documents show.
In October, agents in Hawaii analyzed Seguerre's computer and found child pornography from a man named Tommy, later identified as Murphy in Bedford. Court documents say that Seguerre told agents that Murphy was making child porn using his own daughters.
Authorities later determined that
Murphy's girls were under the age of 3 when he videotaped himself sexually abusing them.
"This is a sad and tragic family matter," said Murphy's attorney, Michael Heiskell. "My client has been totally cooperative during the investigation and is truly remorseful for the role he played."
Seguerre has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual exploitation of children and is set for trial in Hawaii late next month.
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