OREGON
An Oregon man was sentenced Thursday to serve 11 years and two months in prison for transportation of child pornography, according to officials.Chief Judge Marcia S. Krieger sentenced James Parkhurst, 57, of Portland, Oregon, formerly a pastor.
Parkhurst was the executive director of the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church’s Camp and Retreat Ministry program at the time of arrest in 2016.
A forensic examination of the electronic devices seized from the defendant’s Oregon residence in 2016 revealed hundreds of thousands of images and over 3,500 videos of minors in various stages of undress, including minors posed in sexually suggestive and erotic poses saved on the defendant’s computer and external hard drives.
Judge Krieger also ordered him to serve 15 years of supervised release following his prison sentence. Parkhurst pleaded guilty on Nov. 16 to one count of transportation of child pornography.
According to court filings, Parkhurst traveled to Colorado and produced images of child pornography in August 2010 and then transported those images to his home in Michigan.
According to the evidence, Parkhurst admitted that he took three trips, including the one to Colorado in August 2010. There, he took photographs of nude minors who were in his care.