Sentencing scheduled for piano player busted for child porn
Having pleaded guilty to multiple counts of possessing child pornography, jazz piano player Bill Laursen will be sentenced in a hearing scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on December 3 in federal court.
Laursen was the subject of the July 30 feature story “Crash,” which detailed the musician’s history with legendary KC jazz band, the Scamps, as well as his attempts to explain, and in some ways justify, downloading thousands of photos of underage girls.
“First: Looking at pictures of naked people is not the same as molesting children. …
“Second: We need to get things like this legal action against me moved over into the realm of where it belongs: not prison sentences but required psychotherapy with perhaps a little probation thrown in that will assure that emotional weaknesses like this are properly dealt with. …
“Third: If the slow movement of American societal evolution when it comes to this delicate issue persistently remains stalled at focusing on punishing instead of curing, let’s better educate the general populace that looking at naked images of minors will, without exception, get you a federal prison term of at least ten years.”
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Laursen faces a mandatory minimum
sentence of five years in federal prison without parole or as many as
110 years without parole, plus a fine of $1.5 million.
