A Butler man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to downloading child pornography on his computer and a judge immediately sentenced him to 70 months in prison.

Sean Edward Sharrit, 44, of Eastwood Drive, was indicted in January after state police in Butler executed a search warrant on his apartment and found hundreds of child porn images and movies on his laptop.

The case started in May 2007 when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received an anonymous tip that someone was sharing 100 to 200 files containing child porn on the Gnutella peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

The center turned the information over to state troopers and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Investigators determined that Mr. Sharrit was the subscriber and searched his residence on Aug. 23, 2007, finding his laptop, porn magazines and suspected marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

A forensic search of the laptop turned up the porn files.

Troopers said he agreed to be interviewed and confessed to downloading hundreds of images, movies and videos after logging onto the network 338 times from March 14 through July 10, 2007.

According to court papers, he said he knew it was illegal but said he did it out of "curiosity."

In addition to the 70 months, Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond sentenced Mr. Sharrit to 10 years of probation and ordered him to register as a sex offender.

The case was prosecuted as part of the Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which began in 2006 under then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The nationwide program, led by U.S. attorneys' offices, is designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. The effort combines federal, state and local resources to find and prosecute those who solicit children online or trade in child porn.

More than 2,000 people were indicted in 2007 as part of the program.