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The Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the conviction and 1,000-year sentence of former Troup County Commissioner Peter Mallory.

According to a news release from Herb Cranford, district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, a Troup County jury found Mallory guilty of 60 counts of sexual exploitation of children, three counts of invasion of privacy, and one count of tampering with evidence on Dec. 18, 2012. He was arrested on April 27, 2011. 

The charges stemmed from a LaGrange Police Department investigation in February 2011. Police received an alert of more than 600 suspected child pornography files linked to a computer in LaGrange. The investigation also led to the local television station Mallory operated where investigators seized several hard drives containing more than 26,000 files of child pornography.

The evidence showed that Mallory knowingly and intentionally sought out, gathered, downloaded and save images and videos of children being raped, tortured and sexually exploited.

Evidence at trial also showed that Mallory installed and operated a hidden camera at his desk and recorded young female victims as they sat in his office.  

At Mallory’s sentencing hearing, Coweta Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Dennis Blackmon said Mallory was “probably the most prolific collector of child pornography in the entire world.”

In its unreported decision upholding the judgment of the trial court, the court of appeals held that their “review of the record [did] not show that the [1,000-year] sentence was disproportionate for the crimes Mallory committed.”

Cranford said the district attorney’s office thanks the court of appeals upholding the conviction and sentence. 

“LaGrange Police Department detectives and Assistant District Attorneys Kevin McMurry and Steve Lee should be commended for their tireless work on behalf of every child victimized in the pictures and recordings in this case,” said a news release from Cranford’s office. “Under former District Attorney Pete Skandalakis possessing child pornography was prosecuted as aggressively as child molestation, and that remains the policy of this office under District Attorney Cranford because for every image and recording of child pornography someone’s child was victimized and traumatized.”