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Gerard Jones Sentenced to 6 Years in Jail on Child Pornography Charges

Published Wed, 15 Aug 2018 12:20:35 -0500

Last updated Thu, 16 Aug 2018 05:40:16 -0500

Gerard Jones, long-standing comic book writer, was sentenced yesterday by a San Francisco court to six years in federal prison on child pornography charges.

Jones, 60, pleaded guilty to the charges in April and was remanded on bail until sentencing. The charges were in regard to distributing and possessing child pornography.

He was arrested in September in 2016 after YouTube tipped off police that he had uploaded suspected child pornography to a private YouTube channel, and he was charged the following January.

As a result, DC Comics cancelled planned reprints of his Justice League and Green Lantern work. He is also known for co-creating the Ultraverse character Prime, about a child who instantly turns into a super-strong adult superhero, as well Topaz, who appeared in the recent Thor: Ragnarok movie. He also co-created The Trouble with Girls, Solitaire, Ultraforce, and Hulk 2099; wrote the Green Lantern stories Emerald Dawn, Emerald Dawn II, Mosaic, and the Guy Gardner series that so defined the current version of the Green Lantern character, including the upcoming movie; and Martian Manhunter: American Secrets, which also defined the Martian Manhunter for the current comics.

He also wrote the non-fiction books The Comic Book Heroes: The First History of Modern Comic Books, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Superheroes and Make-Believe Violence and Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book. He had been working on a new book both before and after his arrest, and much of his legal concern was over content stored on seized computers which he wanted returned so he could finish his book, titled Nation of Faith and Flesh: The Moral War that Shaped America.

Although originally planning to plead innocent, having gathered character witness statements from his friends, neighbours and comic book industry colleagues, he changed his plea to guilty at the last moment. Those good character statements were then used by his legal team, alongside psychological reports, to argue to allow Jones bail before sentencing, which unusually was granted.

As well as the sentence, he will remain under supervised release for a further five years.

Jones will begin serving his sentence on November 30th.