Kansas City, Mo. ? A former pharmacist from St. Joseph who admitted downloading child pornography from the Internet and making the images available to other computer users was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison.

Walter E. Sewell, 42, pleaded guilty last year to one count each of publishing a notice of child pornography and distributing child pornography.

Federal prosecutors across the country have been watching the case because of the unusual way in which the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City charged Sewell.

People accused of downloading child porn from the Internet typically have been charged with possession, which carries a minimum sentence of five years.

The charge of publishing a notice of child pornography – usually brought against commercial distributors of such material – carries a minimum of 15 years in prison.

In Sewell’s case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Phillips contended that using the peer-to-peer software program called Kazaa amounted to posting notices of child porn on the Internet. Phillips noted that users of Kazaa can place downloaded material in a common file that other users can access by descriptive words, such as those identifying images as child porn.

Sewell was arrested after an FBI agent found numerous child pornography images using Kazaa in 2003 and traced them to computers at Sewell’s home and at the supermarket pharmacy where he worked. Among the thousands of pictures later discovered on both computers were some of preschool children being sexually assaulted.

In a statement before his sentencing Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey, Sewell apologized to the children whose pictures he collected.

“When I started looking at these images, I never thought there was a victim,” Sewell said. “It was only after I stopped looking at them did I realize there were (victims). … I apologize to all the children.”

An FBI employee read a statement to the court from one of the children whose images appeared on Sewell’s computer.

“Child pornography is not a victimless crime,” the girl’s statement read. “I am a victim and I still suffer every day and every time someone sees me being abused.”

The girl, Masha Allen, 14, has been a public campaigner against child pornography and has testified before a congressional committee.

Born in Russia, she was adopted in the 1990s by a Pennsylvania millionaire who sexually abused her for about five years and posted hundreds of pictures of her on the Web. That man was prosecuted and received long sentences in state and federal prisons.

Sewell’s defense lawyer, Eric Chase, has been sharply critical of his client’s prosecution, calling it “evil.”

Chase, who is based in southern California, on Wednesday blasted the prosecutor’s use of the “publishing a notice” law against Sewell as unfair.

“This is the only district attorney’s office in the country doing that,” Chase said, later vowing to file an appeal soon.