Richland man sentenced for receiving child porn

A Richland man was sentenced Monday in federal court to five years in prison for receiving child pornography.

Sky Steven Bennett, 34, was confronted by his Richland employer, Columbia Energy and Environmental Services, on Aug. 16, 2012, about a personal hard disk drive he had brought to work. It was concerned about possible mishandling of company information, according to court documents.

The next day as the company searched the hard disk drive it discovered files were being deleted through a remote connection. An attempt to recover deleted information turned up files with names indicating child pornography, and the company contacted Richland police, according to court documents.

The Richland police recovered about 600 pictures of child pornography, including of infants and toddlers being harmed, on Bennett's electronic devices, according to court documents. Investigators believed he had been collecting child pornography since 2000.

Bennett also will be on supervised release for 20 years after serving his prison sentence.

This story was originally published January 13, 2014 at 9:31 PM with the headline "Richland man sentenced for receiving child porn ."