Former CMU professor pleads guilty to receiving child pornograph - ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI

(03/21/13) - A former Central Michigan professor has plead guilty to one count of receiving child pornography.

In exchange for 58-year-old William Merrill's guilty plea, two other counts have been dropped.

Merrill appeared before a federal magistrate judge on Thursday. The judge asked William Merrill several times, Thursday, if he fully understood what he was doing by entering a guilty plea. With that, comes giving up certain rights like an appeal and a right to a trial. Each time, Merrill told the court - yes he understood.

His attorneys, Frank Reynolds and Dan O'Neill, were hoping for a different plea deal that involved possession, instead of receiving child pornography, which holds a five year mandatory sentence - but the federal government would not accept such an agreement.

"In this case, the evidence was pretty clear, in the federal system, by offering a plea and accepting a plea you get a reduction in levels on his sentencing guidelines and that's a significant thing," Reynolds said.

Merrill left the courthouse with his family by his side, just as they were in November when he appeared in federal court for the first time in Flint.

During the hearing, Magistrate Judge Charles Binder asked Merrill to explain what he did in own words.

Merrill stated in 2003, he downloaded a child pornography video - he says he didn't watch the whole thing, and that it got saved to his external hard drive. Investigators say they discovered 65,000 items containing child pornography on Merrill's computers.

Merrill's attorney says he will ask the judge to consider giving Merrill the mandatory minimum.

"I'm going to push for that, it's something I feel very strongly about, I know Bill and his wife, spent a lot of time together talking, discussing these issues, and we will fight as hard as we can for the judge to say, 'I give you the benefit of the doubt,' or 'I'll take these things into consideration because they are important, and his life history is important too,'" Reynolds said.

Merrill's life history may have been key to why the other charges were dropped.

Merrill was a professor in the College of Education and Human Services researching Internet censorship and the use of children in advertising. During last year's court hearing, revealed he was abused as a young boy while living overseas in Eastern Europe. His lawyer says Merrill was looking at the child pornographic material to see if he could find images of himself.

"I think it's a situation where what happened to him as a kid stayed with him for a long time, he attempted suicide on a couple of occassions, he's been dealing with this for a long time. His marriage, his wife, his children, his profession has been exemplary. For the all the reasons we talked about and more, got caught up in downloading this stuff off the Internet," Reynolds said.

Reynolds hopes the sentencing judge takes into consideration Merrill's past.

A sentencing date is scheduled for July 11. Merrill is released on bond.