photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Benjamin L. Pelofsky was sentenced to 24 months in prison in a child pornography case on Friday, April 29, 2022, in Douglas County District Court. Judge Amy Hanley suspended the sentence to 24 months of probation.

Updated at 4 p.m. Friday

A Lawrence man was sentenced Friday in Douglas County District Court to 24 months in a child pornography case; however, a judge suspended his sentence to probation.

The man, Benjamin L. Pelofsky, 22, pleaded no contest to two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child in January for possessing lewd pictures of minors on his computer. The charge is a level-seven person felony.

Pelofsky was represented by defense attorney Marilyn B. Keller from Kansas City, Missouri, and was sentenced by Judge Amy Hanley.

As previously reported by the Journal-World, Pelofsky was originally charged in April of 2021 with four counts of sexual exploitation of a child, a level-five person felony, for possessing images depicting a child under the age of 18 shown or being heard engaging in sexually explicit conduct on his computer in 2019.

The original level-five charges could have put Pelofsky in prison for more than 11 years, according to Kansas’ sentencing guidelines. The charges he pleaded to were modified from sexual exploitation of a child to attempted sexual exploitation of a child and carry a lesser penalty.

Pelofsky has been ordered to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

Hanley said that she received several letters from Pelofsky’s family that she read more than once before the sentencing. The letters described Pelofsky as a warm, insightful animal lover; Hanley said the letters played into her decision to slightly alter the sentence suggested in the plea, but not for Pelofsky’s benefit.

Hanley deviated from the sentencing guidelines by ordering Pelofsky’s underlying sentence of 12 months for each charge to run consecutively and not concurrently, she said.

With the additional threat of serving two full years in prison, Hanley said she hoped that Pelofsky would follow through on his probation obligations.

She said that Pelofsky had no criminal history and it was clear that he had a lot of family support.

“It will be important that you separate what you did and who you are. You are worth getting your life back on track. I never want to see you again, and I mean that in the best way,” Hanley said.