Michael Limburg

A jury found a 46-year-old Lawrence man guilty late Thursday of 14 counts of sexual exploitation of a child stemming from a 2012 arrest.

Michael James Limburg was booked into jail and awaits sentencing after the verdict in Douglas County District Court, which followed four days of trial. Limburg had been free on a $50,000 bond.

During a preliminary hearing in 2012, a Johnson County Sheriff’s Office detective testified about discovering Limburg’s Internet Protocol, or IP, address during a search of child pornography videos and photos on an online file-sharing program. The detective described several of the videos as displaying children engaged in sexual acts. Because the IP address belonged to a Lawrence man’s account, the detective contacted the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, which seized Limburg’s computer and several floppy disks via a search warrant.

A Douglas County Sheriff’s Office detective later testified that images of child pornography were found on the disks and that a forensic examination of Limburg’s computer turned up numerous searches for terms associated with child pornography.

Limburg was convicted of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a child for promoting a performance and four counts of sexual exploitation of a child for possessing a visual depiction. Limburg is scheduled to be sentenced May 29 and faces sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole for each of the 10 “promoting” counts and sentences between 31 to 136 months for the four possession counts.