Rochester Man Sentenced for Child Porn Conviction

Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News)- A Rochester man has been sentenced in connection to a cyber tip regarding child sexual abuse materials first reported in 2021. 

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52-year-old Patrick John Gora was charged in June with felony possession of child pornography and disseminating child pornography. In October he entered a guilty plea to the disseminating child pornography count in exchange for the dismissal of the child pornography possession felony. 

Gora was sentenced to five years probation in Olmsted County Court on Monday. He's also ordered to attend and complete a sex offender program and serve 100 hours of community service.

The case opened in April of 2021 when social networking site MeWe alerted the Minnesota BCA to an exchange of suspected child sexual abuse material between two related accounts. Investigators traced the IP address from the accounts to Gora, which led to a law enforcement search of his southwest Rochester home last February according to the criminal complaint.

Gora admitted to investigators that he preferred images of teenage girls and said he doesn’t send images of children to others very often, the complaint says. He admitted to receiving images depicting child sexual abuse and told investigators he had a phone hidden in the basement of his home, the complaint says. 

The charges say the phone had two images of suspected child sexual abuse material that Gora had sent to someone else. MeWe also disclosed four images depicting child sexual abuse from Gora’s account, according to the charges.