Former deputy gets 5 years for viewing child porn at work

A former sheriff’s deputy has been sentenced to five years in prison for looking up child pornography websites on his sheriff’s department computer, officials have said.

Harry “Butch” Parris, 69, will serve an additional 15 years on probation after completing his five-year prison term, according to Fayette County Assistant District Attorney Robert Smith. Parris entered a guilty plea in court Aug. 23.

Parris’s illicit activity was discovered after the county’s Information Technology staff became suspicious due to his computer being infected by viruses, Smith said. The IT department then conducted an internal investigation to find that the computer was being used to access websites containing child pornography, Smith said.

That ultimately led to a probe that was undertaken by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Smith added.

The investigators determined no child porn was being downloaded onto the computer, Smith said.

Parris was sentenced in the case after issuing a guilty plea in August.

Sheriff Barry Babb said in March that Parris was terminated for cause Jan. 23, noting that the sheriff’s office requested the GBI investigation in late October 2012.

Parris had been employed by the sheriff’s office since March 1993 and has worked in the jail division.