DALLAS (AP) ? A wealthy Texas woman married to an attorney has been charged with collecting and trading child pornography online in what experts say is a rare case of a woman being caught up in such activity.
Erika Susan Perdue has been undergoing addiction treatment since her April arrest on federal charges that she accessed child pornography from the computer in her $1.4 million, 4,000-square-foot home in the well-heeled Dallas enclave of University Park.
FBI agents who raided the home found child pornography on the computer, and Perdue admitted she'd been collecting it for 12 years, according to court records. She told investigators she used file-trading software every day to exchange images while her husband, an attorney who specializes in intellectual property cases, was at work.
"I've seen cases of women collecting or trading child porn, but not very often and not somebody in that socio-economic strata," said Nancy Hagan, the longtime executive director of the Alliance for Children, a Fort Worth child advocacy center.
A four-count indictment claims Perdue, 41, engaged in transporting, shipping, receiving and possessing child pornography. If convicted, she could face maximum prison sentences of 20 years for three of the counts and 10 years for the other.
She isn't accused of creating the images.
The search of Perdue's home was prompted by federal agents who, working undercover, logged into file-sharing programs and obtained 21 downloaded files containing child pornography, according to an FBI affidavit. The agents traced the IP address to Perdue's home, the affidavit states.
George "Buck" Johnson, one of three attorneys representing Perdue in the case, declined to comment.
Perdue and her husband, Mark, have been married since December 2009, records show. Mark Perdue is not named in the criminal complaint.
According to a court filing by the defense team, Perdue has been undergoing unspecified treatment since her arrest at a center outside Dallas. The facility identified in the document specializes in addressing "addictive behaviors and associated conditions," according to its Web site.
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