Aspen man pleads guilty to sending child porn

A former Aspen restaurant manager pleaded guilty Monday to sending child pornography to a woman he was chatting with online this summer.

Blair Gibsone, 48, could have faced as many as 12 years in prison for the guilty plea to sexual exploitation of a child but will serve only a possible local jail sentence followed by probation as part of a plea deal with the District Attorney’s Office.

Gibsone will have to register as a sex offender, though his lawyer said he will almost certainly be deported to his native New Zealand because of the plea. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 3.

Gibsone was arrested in June after a female acquaintance on Facebook told Aspen police that during late-night chat sessions Gibsone admitted to molesting and raping a young girl he frequently babysits. He then sent the woman a picture of the girl sitting at a local Aspen restaurant, according to court documents.

During a later chat session monitored by an Aspen police detective, Gibsone allegedly named the girl and said the sexual abuse had been going on for two years.

“Honestly, I’d rather she do it with me so she is safe,” he wrote, according to court documents. “I let her do whatever she wanted only if she liked it and wanted it.”

Gibsone included pictures of two naked female children and one naked male child in the Facebook chats he sent to the woman.

However, the story about babysitting the girl turned out to be untrue. Gibsone told police he’d never done any babysitting and didn’t know the girl in the Aspen restaurant picture. He said he was drunk during the Facebook chats and didn’t remember them.

On Monday, he elaborated on his life at that time, saying he’d been working 14-to-16-hour days in the hospitality business and drinking heavily.

“I’d been blacking out for the last year,” Gibsone said. “I’m still a bit confused about things because I don’t remember.”

He also said he’d been dealing with a lot of family members dying the past five years, including his sister-in-law who died by suicide this summer.

“In the last five years, I’ve had quite a bit of death,” he said, adding that he’s been sober in recent months.

Gibsone admitting sending the child pornography but said he didn’t remember doing so.

Prosecutor Don Nottingham pointed out that police found numerous other items of sexually exploitative material in Gibsone’s home. Gibsone also admitted to a detective in June that he’d been having sexual fantasies about children and had watched child pornography, according to court documents.

Gibsone, who will undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation before his sentencing in February, faces an undetermined jail sentence or probation sentence or both.

However, Monday’s plea “will result in almost certain deportation,” said Jeffery Weeden, Gibsone’s Denver-based lawyer.

jauslander@aspentimes.com

via:: The Aspen Times