Attorney and Ex-Diplomat Gets 20 Years in Child Porn Case

A University of Pennsylvania law graduate who videotaped sexual encounters with teenage girls while working as a U.S. diplomat in Africa and South America has been sentenced to a maximum 20 years in prison.

The stiff sentence was imposed today on Gons Nachman, 42, by U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, who gave him two consecutive 10-year terms, reports the Associated Press. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to possessing child pornography and misuse of a diplomatic passport.

"Nachman wept after hearing the sentence. His attorneys had suggested the six months he has already spent in prison would be sufficient," the news agency writes.

They had also suggested that Nachman should be treated leniently due to different cultural norms in Brazil and the Congo, where the crimes occurred, and said embassy officials weren't concerned when he brought a 17-year-old girl to the embassy in the Congo as his date.

This did not go over well with the judge: "I reject out of hand completely the idea that I should take into account cultural differences," he said. Even assuming that there is a difference between what is acceptable there and here, U.S. standards and U.S. law apply to a diplomat working at a U.S. embassy, Lee pointed out.

Nachman is a well-known naturist who was president of the Naturist Student Association while he was a law student at Penn. He led demonstrations involving public nudity in 1995, AP notes.

Related coverage:

Daily Pennsylvanian (1994): "Naturists bare all on UTV 'Show' premiere"